BX  955  .M32  1916 
McCabe,  Joseph,  1867-1955. 
Crises  in  the  history  of  th 
papacy 


By  Joseph  McCabe 

Peter  Abelard 
St.  Augustine  and  His  Age 
A  Candid  History  of  the  Jesuits 
Crises    in    the    History    of   the 
Papacy 


Crises 

in  the 

History  of  the  Papacy 

A  Study  of 

Twenty    Famous    Popes    whose    Careers   and 

whose  Influence  Were  Important  in  the 

Development  of  the  Church  and 

in  the  History  of  the  World 


By 
Joseph  McCabe 

Author  of  "  Peter  Abelard,"    "  Life  of  Saint  Augustine,"  etc. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New   York  and   London 

Cbe  fjnlchcrbocher  press 

1916 


Copyright,  1916 

BY 

JOSEPH    McCABE 


Ube  "RnJclicrbocftcr  threes,  Wcw  HJorft 


PREFACE 

PROBABLY  no  religious  institution  in  the  world  has 
had  so  remarkable  a  history,  and  assuredly  none 
has  attracted  so  large  and  varied  a  literature,  as  the 
Papacy.  The  successive  dynasties  of  the  priests  of 
ancient  Egypt  were,  by  comparison,  parochial  in  their 
power  and  ephemeral  in  their  duration.  The  priests  of 
Buddha,  rising  to  an  autocracy  in  the  isolation  of 
Thibet  or  mingling  with  the  crowd  in  the  more  genial 
atmosphere  of  China  or  cherishing  severe  mysticisms 
in  Japan,  offer  no  analogy  to  the  Papacy's  consistent 
growth  and  homogeneous  dominion.  The  religious 
leaders  of  the  Jews,  scattered  through  the  world,  yet 
hardened  in  their  type  by  centuries  of  persecution, 
may  surpass  it  in  conservative  antiquity,  but  they  do 
not  remotely  approach  it  in  power  and  in  historical 
importance.  It  influences  the  history  of  Europe  more 
conspicuously  than  emperors  have  ever  done,  stretches  a 
more  than  imperial  power  over  lands  beyond  the  most 
fevered  dreams  of  Alexander  or  Caesar,  and  may  well 
seem  to  have  made  "Eternal  Rome"  something  more 
than  the  idle  boast  of  a  patriot. 

Yet  this  conservative  endurance  has  not  been 
favoured  by  such  a  stability  of  environment  as  has 
sheltered  the  lamas  of  Thibet  or  the  secular  priests  of 
the  old  Chinese  religion.  The  Papacy  has  lived  through 
fifteen  centuries  of  portentous  change,  though  it  seemed 


iv  Preface 

in  each  phase  to  have  connected  Itself  indissolubly  with 
the  dominant  institutions  and  ideas  of  that  phase. 
The  Popes  have  witnessed,  and  have  survived,  three 
mighty  transformations  of  the  face  of  Europe.  They 
had  hardly  issued  from  their  early  obscurity  and  lodged 
themselves  in  the  fabric  of  the  old  Roman  civilization 
when  this  fell  into  ruins;  but  they  held  firmly,  amidst 
the  ruins,  the  sceptre  they  had  inherited.  One  by  one 
the  stately  institutions  of  the  older  world — the  schools, 
the  law-courts,  the  guilds  of  craftsmen,  the  mihtary 
system,  the  municipal  forms  and  commercial  routes — 
disappeared  in  the  flood  of  barbarism  which  poured  over 
Europe,  but  this  institution,  which  seemed  the  least 
firmly  established,  was  hardly  shaken  and  was  quickly 
accepted  by  the  strange  new  world.  A  new  polity  was 
created,  partly  under  the  direction  of  the  Popes,  and  it 
was  so  entirely  saturated  by  their  influence  that  religion 
gave  it  its  most  characteristic  name.  Then  Christen- 
dom, as  it  was  called,  passed  in  turn  through  a  critical 
development,  culminating  in  the  Reformation;  and 
the  Papacy  begot  a  Counter-Reformation  and  secured 
millions  beyond  the  seas  to  replace  the  millions  it  had 
lost.  The  third  and  last  convulsion  began  with  the 
work  of  Voltaire  and  Rousseau  and  Mirabeau,  and  has 
grievously  shaken  the  political  theory  with  which  the 
Papacy  was  allied  and  the  older  religious  views  which  it 
had  stereotyped.  Yet  today  it  has  some  35,000,000 
followers  in  the  three  greatest  Protestant  countries, 
the  lands  of  Luther,  of  Henry  VIII.,  and  of  the  Puritan 
Fathers. 

It  must  seem  a  futile  design  to  attempt  to  tell,  with 
any  intelligent  satisfaction,  within  the  limits  of  a  small 
volume  the  extraordinary  story  of  this  institution. 
No  serious  historian  now  tries  to  command  more  than 


Preface  v 

a  section  of  the  record  of  the  Papacy,  and  he  usually 
finds  a  dozen  volumes  required  for  the  adequate  present- 
ment of  that  section.  Yet  there  is  something  to  be 
said  for  such  a  sketch  as  I  propose  to  give.  If  we  take 
four  of  the  more  important  recent  histories  of  the 
Papacy — those  of  Father  Grisar,  Dr.  Mann,  Dr.  Pastor, 
and  Dr.  Creighton — we  find  that  the  joint  thirty 
volumes  do  not  cover  the  whole  period  of  Papal  history 
even  to  the  sixteenth  century;  and  the  careful  student 
will  not  omit  to  include  in  his  reading  the  still  valuable 
volumes  of  Milman  and  of  Dr.  Langer.  In  other  words, 
he  must  study  more  than  fifty  volumes  if  he  would  have 
an  incomplete  account  of  the  development  of  the 
Papacy  up  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  and  more 
than  that  number  if  he  would  follow  accurately  the 
fortunes  of  the  Papacy  since  the  days  of  Paul  III.  The 
history  of  the  Papacy  is  very  largely  the  history  of 
Europe,  and  this  voluminous  expansion  is  inevitable. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  general  student  of  the  history 
of  Europe  and  the  general  reader  who  seeks  intellectual 
pleasure  in  "the  storied  page"  are  not  only  repelled  by 
such  an  array  of  tomes,  but  they  have  no  interest  in  a 
vast  proportion  of  the  matter  which  it  is  incumbent  on 
the  ecclesiastical  historian  to  record.  One  wants  a  view 
of  the  Papacy  in  the  essential  lines  of  its  development, 
and  they  are  usually  lost,  or  not  easily  recognized,  in 
the  conscientiously  full  chronicles.  Is  it  possible  to 
give  a  useful  and  informing  account  of  the  essential 
history  of  the  Papacy  in  a  small  volume? 

The  rare  attempts  to  do  this  that  have  been  made 
have  failed  from  one  or  other  of  two  causes :  they  have 
either  been  written  with  a  controversial  aim  and  there- 
fore have  given  only  the  higher  lights  or  darker  shades 
of  the  picture,  or  they  have  been  mere  summaries  of 


vi  Preface 

the  larger  works,  mingling  what  is  relevant  and  what  is 
not  relevant  from  the  developmental  point  of  view.     The 
design  which  occurs  to  me  is  to  write  a  study  of  the 
Papacy  by  taking  a  score  of  the  outstanding  Popes— 
which  means,  in  effect,  a  score  of  the  more  significant 
or  critical  stages  in  the  development  of  the  Papacy— 
and  giving  an  adequate  account  of  the  work  and  per- 
sonality of  each.     The  evolution  of  the  Papacy  has  not, 
like  the  evolution  of  life  in  general,  been  continuous. 
It  has  had  periods  of  stagnation  and  moments  of  rapid 
progress  or  decay.     Of  the  first  hundred  Popes,  scarcely 
a  dozen  contributed  materially  to  the  making  of  the  Pap- 
acy: the  others  maintained  or  marred  the  work  of  the 
great  Popes.     It  is  the  same  with  the  environment  of  the 
Papacy,  which  has  influenced  its  fortunes  as  profoundly 
as  changes  of  environment  have  affected  the  advance 
of  terrestrial  life.      There  have  been  long  drowsy  sum- 
mers closed  by  something  like  ice  ages;  there  have  been 
convulsions  and  strange  invasions,  stimulating  advance 
by  their  stern  and  exacting  pressure.     I  propose  to 
select  these  more  significant  periods  or  personalities  of 
Papal  history,  and  trust  that  the  resultant  view  of  the 
Papacy  will  have  interest  and  usefulness.     The  periods 
which  lie  between  the  various  Pontificates  which  I  select 
will  be  compressed  into  a  brief  account  of  their  essential 
characters  and  more  prominent  representatives,  so  that 
the  work  will  form  a  continuous  study  of  the  Papacy. 

In  the  selection  of  a  score  of  Popes  out  of  more  than 
two  hundred  and  fifty  there  is  room  for  difference  of 
judgment.  The  principle  on  which  I  have  proceeded  is 
plain  from  the  general  aim  I  have  indicated.  The 
story  of  the  Papacy  may  fitly  be  divided  into  two  parts: 
a  period  of  making  and  a  period  of  unmaking.  Taking 
the  terms  somewhat  liberally,  one  may  say  that  the 


Preface  vii 

first  period  reaches  from  the  second  to  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  that  the  subsequent  centuries  have  wit- 
nessed an  increasing  loss  of  authority,  especially  in  the 
catastrophic  movements  (from  the  Papal  point  of  view) 
of  the  sixteenth  and  the  nineteenth  centuries.  A  selec- 
tion of  significant  Popes  must,  therefore,  include  the 
great  makers  of  the  Papacy,  the  men  whose  vice  or 
incompetence  brought  destructive  criticism  upon  it, 
and  the  men  who  have,  with  varying  fortune,  sought  to 
defend  it  against  the  inroads  of  that  criticism  during  the 
last  four  centuries.  One  must  make  a  selection  neither 
of  good  Popes  nor  bad  Popes,  but  of  the  Popes  who,  in 
either  direction,  chiefly  influenced  the  fortunes  of  the 
institution;  and,  in  order  that  no  important  phase  may 
be  omitted,  a  few  men  of  no  very  pronounced  personality 
must  be  included. 

Regarded  from  this  point  of  view,  the  history  of  the 
Papacy  may  be  compressed  within  limits  which  rather 
accentuate  than  obscure  its  interest,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  a  very  ample  account  may  be  given  of  some  of  its 
more  instructive  phases.  The  first  phase,  before  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  became  a  Pope,  in  the  distinctive  sense 
of  the  word,  is  best  illustrated  by  taking  the  bishopric 
of  Callistus  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century.  The 
Roman  bishopric  was  then  one  of  several  "apostolic 
Sees,"  rarely  claiming  authority  over  other  bishoprics, 
and  still  more  rarely  finding  such  a  claim  acknowledged : 
thrown  somewhat  into  the  shade  by  the  vastly  greater 
strength  of  the  Eastern  churches,  yet  having  an  im- 
mense and  as  yet  undeveloped  resource  in  the  tradition, 
which  was  now  generally  accepted,  that  it  had  been 
founded  by  the  two  princes  of  the  apostles.  There 
was,  however,  in  three  hundred  years,  no  Roman  bishop 
sufficiently  endowed  to  develop  this  resource,  and  the 


viii  Preface 

fourth  century  still  found  the  Roman  See  so  little 
elevated  that  its  African  neighbours  disdainfully  re- 
jected its  claim  of  authority.  Then  the  far-reaching 
change  which  followed  the  conversion  of  Constantine 
bestowed  on  it  a  material  splendour  and  a  secular 
authority  which  gave  it  a  distinctive  place  in  Christen- 
dom, and  a  study  of  the  life  of  Bishop  Damasus  shows 
us  the  extension  of  its  prestige  and  the  exploitation  of 
its  tradition;  while  the  founding  of  a  rival  imperial 
city  in  the  East  and  the  obliteration  of  all  other  apostolic 
Sees  withdrew  half  of  Christendom  from  Roman  in- 
fluence before  its  ecumenic  claim  was  fully  developed. 

The  fall  of  the  western  Roman  Empire  enfeebles  the 
once  powerful  and  independent  provincial  bishops  and 
gives  a  more  spiritual  outlook  to  the  successors  of  Peter 
who  sit  among  the  ruins  of  Rome.  The  life  of  Leo  the 
Great  illustrates  this  concentration  on  religious  power 
amidst  the  autumnal  decay  of  the  more  material  power 
and  of  the  wealth  which  had  inflated  and  secularized 
some  of  his  predecessors.  The  life  of  Gregory  the  Great 
marks  the  culmination  of  this  development.  The 
material  world  seems  to  be  nearing  dissolution  and  the 
old  Roman  spirit  of  organization,  which  is  strong  in 
Gregory  I.,  is  directed  to  the  creation  of  a  moral  and 
religious  dictatorship.  There  are  still  flickers  of 
independence  in  remote  bishoprics,  and  the  East  is 
irrecoverably  removed,  but  the  disordered  state  of 
Christendom  cries  for  a  master.  Europe  is  young  again, 
with  a  vicious  impulsive  youth,  and  the  rod  of  Rome 
falls  healthily  on  its  shoulders ;  and  the  paralysis  of  civic 
government  and  land-tenure  in  Italy  inevitably  casts 
secular  functions  and  large  possessions  upon  the  one 
effective  power  that  survives.  An  elementary  royalty 
begins  to  attach  to  the  Papacy :  the  function  of  ultimate 


Preface  ix 

tribunal  in  that  violent  world  is  imposed  on  it  almost 
by  public  needs:  and,  though  Gregory  is  personally  dis- 
dainful of  culture,  the  Church,  and  the  monastic  re- 
fuges it  consecrates,  preserve  for  a  wiser  age  to  come 
some  proportion  of  the  wisdom  of  the  dead  age. 

With  Hadrian  I.  a  new  phase  opens.  The  possession 
and  administration  of  "patrimonies,"  or  bequeathed 
estates,  give  place  to  the  definite  political  control  of 
whole  provinces,  under  the  protection  of  a  powerful  and 
conveniently  remote  King  of  the  Franks.  In  the  ninth 
century,  Nicholas  I.  consolidates  and  extends  the  new 
power,  both  as  temporal  and  spiritual  ruler.  The 
vice  and  violence  of  Europe  still  justify  or  promote  the 
growth  of  a  great  spiritual  autocracy,  and  the  illiteracy 
of  Europe — for  culture  has  touched  its  lowest  depth — • 
permits  the  imposition  on  it  (in  the  "False  Decretals," 
etc.)  of  an  impressive  and  fictitious  version  of  the  bases 
of  Papal  claims.  Then  Rome,  which  has  hitherto 
had  singularly  few  unworthy  men  in  the  chair  of  Peter, 
becomes  gradually  degraded  to  the  level  of  its  age,  and 
the  Papacy  passes  into  the  darkness  of  the  Age  of  Iron : 
which  is  fitly  illustrated  by  the  Pontificate  of  John  X. 
Gregory  VII.  shows  its  restoration  to  spiritual  ideals  and 
the  union  of  monastic  severity  with  the  Papal  tradition ; 
and  this  steady  creation  of  a  machinery  for  dominating 
the  vice  and  violence  of  Europe  is  perfected  in  the  ex- 
traordinary work  of  Innocent  III.,  who  would,  for  its 
moral  correction,  make  Europe  the  United  States  of  the 
Church  and  treat  its  greatest  monarchs  as  satraps  of 
the  Papacy. 

After  Innocent,  the  Papacy  degenerates.  A  renewed 
school-life,  the  influence  of  the  Moors,  the  evolution  of 
civic  life  and  prosperity,  and  the  rise  of  powerful  king- 
doms stimulate  the  intelligence  of  Europe,  while  the 


X  Preface 

political  connexions  in  which  the  temporal  power  en- 
tangles the  Papacy  lead  to  a  degeneration  which  can- 
not escape  the  more  alert  mind  of  the  laity.  During 
a  long  exile  at  Avignon  the  Papal  court  learns  soft  ways 
and  corrupt  devices — illustrated  by  the  life  of  John 
XXII. — and  the  Great  Schism  which  follows  the  return 
to  Rome  causes  a  moral  paralysis  which  permits  the 
Pontificate  of  an  unscrupulous  adventurer  like  John 
XXIII.  The  prosperous  sensuality  of  the  new  Europe 
infects  an  immense  proportion  of  the  clergy:  war, 
luxury,  and  display  entail  a  vast  expenditure,  and  the 
more  thoughtful  clergy  and  laity  deplore  the  increasing 
sale  by  the  Popes  of  sacred  offices  and  spiritual  privileges. 
The  body  of  lay  scholars  and  lawyers  grows  larger  and 
more  critical,  while  the  Papal  Court  sinks  lower  and 
lower.  The  Papacy  is  fiercely  criticized  throughout 
Europe,  and  the  resentment  of  its  moral  complexion 
leads  to  a  discussion  of  the  bases  of  its  power.  The 
earlier  forgeries  are  discovered  and  the  true  story  of  its 
human  growth  is  dimly  apprehended.  The  successive 
Pontificates  of  Alexander  VI.,  Julius  II.,  and  Leo  X.  ex- 
hibit this  dramatic  development :  a  flat  defiance  by  the 
Papal  Court  of  the  increasing  moral  sentiment  and 
critical  intelligence  of  Europe.  Men  are  still  so  domi- 
nated by  religious  tradition  that,  apart  from  an  occa- 
sional heresy,  they  generally  think  only  of  "reform" 
and  reforming  councils.  When  Luther  strikes  a  deeper 
note  of  rebellion,  the  echo  is  portentous,  and  neither 
reform,  nor  violence,  nor  persuasion  succeeds  in  avert- 
ing the  disruption  of  Christendom.  In  Paul  III.,  we  have 
the  last  representative  of  the  Papacy  of  the  Renaissance 
wavering  between  the  grim  menace  of  Germany  and  the 
unpleasantness  of  reform.  In  Sixtus  V.  and  Benedict 
XIV.  we  study  two  of  the  great  efiforts  of  the  new  Papacy 


Preface 


XI 


to  preserve  the  remaining  half  of  its  territory.  In  Pius 
VII.,  Pius  IX.,  and  Leo  XIII.  we  see  the  Papacy  meet- 
ing the  successive  waves  of  the  modern  revolution. 

In  composing  this  sketch  of  Papal  history,  or,  rather, 
study  of  its  critical  phases,  I  have  gratefully  used  the 
larger  modern  histories  to  which  I  have  referred.  Dr. 
Ludwig  Pastor's  History  of  the  Popes  from  the  Close  of 
the  Middle  Ages^  is,  for  the  period  it  covers  (i 300-1 550), 
the  most  valuable  of  all  Papal  histories.  The  Catholic 
author  is  not  less  courageous  than  scholarly,  even  if  we 
must  recognize  some  inevitable  bias  of  affection,  and  he 
has  enriched  our  knowledge  by  a  most  judicious  and 
candid  use  of  unpublished  documents  in  the  Secret 
Archives  of  the  Vatican.  Dr.  H.  K.  Mann's  Lives  of 
the  Popes  in  the  Middle  Ages,""  which  covers  the  ground 
from  Gregory  I.  to  Innocent  III.,  is  based  upon  an  ample 
knowledge  of  the  original  authorities,  but  is  much  less 
candid  and  reliable,  and  seems  to  be  intended  only  for 
controversial  purposes.  Dr.  Creighton's  learned  and 
judicious  History  of  the  Papacy  from  the  Great  Schism 
to  the  Sack  of  Rome^  must  be  corrected  at  times  by  the 
documents  in  Pastor.  Father  H.  Grisar's  incomplete 
History  of  Rome  and  the  Popes  in  the  Middle  Ages'*  is  a 
learned  and  moderate  partisan  study  of  the  Papacy  in 
the  first  four  centuries.  The  older  works  of  Dr.  J. 
Langer,s  Dean  Milman,^  Gregorovius,  ^  and  Ranke  are  by 
no  means   superfluous   to   the   student,   though   more 

'  English  trans.,  1891,  etc 

'  Ten  vols.,  1902-1914. 

J  Six  vols.,  2d  ed.,  1897. 

^English  trans.,  191 1,  etc. 

s  Geschichte  der  romischen  Kirche,  1 881,  etc. 

'  History  of  Latin  Christianity. 

'  The  City  of  Rome  in  the  Middle  Ages,  English  trans.,  1900,  etc. 


xii  Preface 

recent  research  or  judgment  often  corrects  them.  Less 
extensive  works  will  be  noted  in  the  course  of  each 
chapter,  and  I  owe  much  to  industrious  older  authorities 
like  Baronius,  Tillemont,  Raynaldus,  Mansi,  etc.  I 
have,  however,  had  the  original  authorities  before  me 
throughout.  The  earlier  chapters  are,  indeed,  based 
almost  entirely  on  the  Latin  or  Greek  sources,  and,  in 
the  later  chapters,  at  every  point  which  seemed  to 
inspire  differences  of  judgment  I  have  carefully  weighed 
the  original  texts.  For  the  later  mediaeval  period,  how- 
ever, Creighton,  Pastor,  and  Gregorovius  have  so  gen- 
erously strengthened  their  works  with  quotations  and 
references  that,  except  at  a  few  points,  I  may  direct 
the  reader  to  their  more  comprehensive  studies.  The 
narrow  limits  which  are  imposed  by  the  particular  pur- 
pose of  this  work  forbid  either  the  constant  quoting  of 
passages  or  the  design  of  enlarging  on  some  of  the  re- 
markable scenes  to  which  it  at  times  refers.  The 
severe  condensation,  after  the  first  few  chapters,  has 
entailed  a  labour  only  second  to  that  of  research,  and  I 
can  only  trust  that  the  abundance  of  fact  will  afford 
some  compensation  for  the  lack  of  elegance.  Happily 
the  earlier  controversial  method  of  writing  Papal  his- 
tory has  so  far  yielded  to  candid  research  that  the  points 
in  dispute — as  far  as  fact  is  concerned — are  compar- 
atively few.  Where  they  occur — where  grave  and 
accepted  historians  of  any  school  dissent — the  evidence 
is  more  liberally  put  before  the  reader. 

J.  M. 
Christmas,  191 5. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface       ........        iii 

CHAPTER 

I. — St.  Callistus  and  the  Early  Struggle    .         i 

II. — St.  Damasus  and  the  Triumph        .         .       19 

III. — Leo       the    Great,    the    Last    Pope    of 

Imperial  Rome  .....       38 


^     IV. — Gregory  the  Great,  the  First  Medieval 
Pope  .         .         .         .         . 

V. — Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power 

VI. — Nicholas  I.  and  the  False  Decretals 

VII. — John  X.  and  the  Iron  Century 

VIII. — Hildebrand  ..... 

^    IX. — Innocent  III.:    The  Papal  Zenith 

X. — John  XXII.:    The  Court  at  Avignon 

XL — John  XXIII.  and  the  Great  Schism 

XII. — Alexander  VI.:  The  Borgia-Pope 

XIII. — Julius  II.:    The  Fighting  Pope     . 

XIV. — Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death  . 


55 

78 

lOI 

124 
141 

171 
202 
221 
240 
267 
285 


XV. — Paul  III.  and  the  Counter-Reformation     310 


XIV 


Contents 


XVI. — SiXTUS  V.  AND  THE  NeW  ChURCH       . 

XVIL— Benedict  XIV.:     The  Scholar-Pope 
XVIII. — Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution 

XIX.— Pius  IX 

XX.— Leo  XIII 

List  of  the  Popes        .... 
Index  ...... 


PAGE 

351 
368 

391 

443 
451 


Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 


Crises  in  ttie  History  of 
The  Papacy 


CHAPTER  I 

ST.  CALLISTUS  AND  THE  EARLY  STRUGGLE 

AT  the  close  of  the  second  century  after  the  birth  of 
Christ  the  Christian  community  at  Rome  still 
saw  no  human  prospect  of  that  spiritual  mastery  of  the 
world  which  they  trusted  some  day  to  attain.  They 
lived,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  Transtiberina,  the  last 
and  least  reputable  section  of  the  great  city,  beyond  the 
shelter  of  its  walls.  In  that  squalid  and  crowded  dis- 
trict between  the  Janiculus  and  the  Tiber  dwelt  the 
fishers  and  tanners  and  other  poor  workers;  and  the 
Jews,  and  others  who  shunned  the  light,  found  refuge 
among  their  lowly  tenements.  Near  that  early  ghetto, 
from  which  they  had  issued,  most  of  the  Christians 
lingered.  Still  they  were  a  small  community,  and  still 
the  might  of  Rome  bade  them  crouch  trembling  at  the 
gates,  lost  among  the  tombs  and  gardens  of  the  Vatican 
or  the  dense  poverty  at  the  foot  of  the  Janiculus.  Across 
the  river  they  would  see,  above  the  fringe  of  wharves 
and  warehouses,  the  spreading  line  of  the  Roman  people's 
palaces,  from  the  Theatre  of  Pompey  to  the  Great 


2       Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Circus:  perhaps  they  would  hear  the  roar  of  the  Hons 
which  might  at  any  time  taste  Christian  flesh.  Beyond 
these  was  the  seething  popular  quarter  of  the  Velabrum, 
sending  up  to  heaven  at  night  a  confused  murmur  and 
a  blaze  of  light  at  which  the  Christians  would  cross 
themselves;  and  on  either  side  of  the  Velabrum,  the 
stern  guardians  of  its  superstition,  were  the  hills  which 
bore  the  gold-roofed  temple  of  Jupiter  and  the  marble 
city  of  the  Caesars.  More  than  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  had  passed  since  the  death  of  Christ,  yet  his 
followers  waited  without  the  gates,  little  heeded  by  the 
million  citizens  of  Rome. 

The  old  gods  were  dying,  it  is  true.  In  many  a  cool 
atrium  there  must  have  been  some  such  discussion  about 
the  successor  of  Jupiter  as  has  been  finely  imagined  by 
Anatole  France;  but  assuredly  not  the  weirdest  of  the 
Syrian  visionaries  who  abounded  would  have  said  that, 
in  a  few  centuries,  those  neglected  fields  beside  the 
Neronian  Circus  at  the  foot  of  the  Vatican  would  be- 
come the  centre  of  the  world,  and  that  men  and  women 
would  come  from  the  farthest  limits  of  the  Empire  to 
kiss  the  bones  of  those  obscure  Christians.  Men 
talked  of  the  progress  of  the  cult  of  Mithra,  which 
spread  even  to  distant  Eboracum,  or  the  success  of  the 
priests  of  Isis  or  of  Cybele,  but  few  thought  about  the 
priests  of  Christ.  Earlier  in  the  century,  Pliny  had 
written  to  court  to  say  that  he  had  found,  spreading 
over  his  province,  a  sect  named  the  Christians,  whose 
beliefs  seemed  to  him  "an  immoderate  superstition"; 
though  they  had,  he  said,  under  pressure,  abandoned 
their  God  in  crowds;  and  he  had  Httle  doubt  that  he 
would  extinguish  the  sect.  Few  even  of  the  Christians 
can  have  imagined  that  within  two  centuries  their 
cross  would  be  raised  above  the  proudest  monuments  of 


St.  Callistus  and  the  Early  Struggle      3 

Rome,  and  that  the  eagles  of  Jove  and  the  rams  of  Mithra 
would  He  in  the  dust. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  second  century  the  Roman 
Christians  can  hardly  have  numbered  twenty  thousand. 
Dr.  Dollinger  estimates  their  number  at  fifty  thousand, 
but  the  letter  of  Bishop  Cornelius,  on  which  he  relies, 
belongs  to  a  later  date  and  is  not  accurately  quoted  by 
him.^  The  Bishop  says  that,  in  his  time,  the  Roman 
Church  had  forty-four  priests,  fourteen  deacons  and 
subdeacons,  and  ninety-four  clerics  in  minor  orders. 
The  crowd  of  acolytes  and  exorcists  must  not  be  regarded 
in  a  modern  sense ;  most  of  them  would  never  be  priests. 
At  that  time,  there  was  not  a  single  public  chapel  in 
Rome  and  it  would  be  an  anachronism  to  regard  each 
of  the  thirty  or  forty  priests  of  Rome  as  a  rector  in 
charge  of  more  than  a  thousand  souls.  The  Christians 
gathered  stealthily  in  the  houses  of  their  better-en- 
dowed brethren  to  receive  the  sacred  elements  from  poor 
glass  vessels,  and  Tertullian  blushes  to  learn  that  they 
are  found  among  the  panders  and  gamblers  who  have 
to  bribe  the  officials  to  overlook  their  illegal  ways,^ 
The  fact  that  they  supported  fifteen  hundred  poor,  sick, 
and  widows  need  not  surprise  us  when  we  remember 
what  an  age  of  parasitism  it  was.  At  least  a  fourth 
of  the  citizens  of  Rome  lived  on  free  rations  and  had 
free  medical  service.  There  were,  in  fine,  thirty  years 
of  development  between  the  time  of  Cornelius  and  the 
time  of  Callistus.^ 

Yet,  it  was  nearly  a  century  and  a  half,  tradition  said, 

'  It  is  preserved  in  Eusebius,  Ecclesiastical  History,  vi.,  43. 

^  De  Fuga  a  Persecutione,  xiii. 

J  The  number  of  interments  in  the  Catacombs  cannot  very  well  be 
regarded  as  evidence.  Archjeologists  differ  by  millions  in  estimating 
the  number,  and  the  populous  Church  after  Constantino  still  buried  in 
the  Catacombs,  at  least  until  the  Pontificate  of  Damasus. 


4       Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

since  Peter  and  Paul  had  baptized  crowds  on  the  banks 
of  the  Tiber.  One  cannot  today  add  anything  to  the 
discussion  of  that  tradition  and  I  will  very  briefly  state 
the  evidence.  The  First  Epistle  of  Peter — which  is  not 
undisputed — says':  "The  Church  that  is  in  Babylon 
saluteth  you,"  and  Babylon  is  very  plausibly  under- 
stood to  mean  Rome.  Next,  about  the  year  96, 
Clement  of  Rome,  writing  to  the  Corinthians,  speaks 
vaguely  of  a  "martyrdom "  of  Peter  and  Paul,  and  seems 
to  imply  that  it  took  place  at  Rome.  ^  About  the  mid- 
dle of  the  following  century,  we  find  it  believed  in 
remote  parts  of  the  Church — by  Papias  in  Hierapolis 
and  Dionysius  at  Corinth — that  Peter  had  preached  the 
Gospel  at  Rome.^  Ignatius  of  Antioch  also  seems  to 
imply  that  Peter  and  Paul  founded  the  Roman  com- 
munity.'' Irenaeus  and  Tertullian  and  later  writers 
know  even  more  about  it — the  later  the  writer,  the 
more  he  knows — but  the  historian  must  hesitate  to  use 
their  works.  There  is  a  respectable  early  tradition  that 
Peter  and  Paul  preached  the  Gospel  at  Rome  and  suffered 
there  some  kind  of  martyrdom,  during  or  after  the 
Neronian  persecution.  Peter  is  not  called  "bishop" 
of  Rome  by  any  writer  earlier  than  the  third  century, 
and  the  belief  that  he  ruled  the  Roman  Church  for 
twenty-five  years  seems  to  be  merely  the  outcome  of 
some  fanciful  calculations  of  Anti-Pope  Hippolytus. 

Of  the  earlier  bishops,  Linus  and  Anacletus  (or 
Anencletus),  we  know  only  the  names,  s     Then  a  faint 

I  v.,  13.  '  Epistle,  V. 

3  See  Eusebius,  ii.,  15,  and  iii.,  40,  for  the  words  of  Papias,  and  ii., 
25,  for  the  testimony  of  Dionysius. 

*  Letter  to  Romans,  iv. 

s  Even  the  names  and  order  are  given  differently  in  early  writers.  I 
follow,  as  is  now  usual,  the  order  given  by  Epiphanius  (xxvii.,  6)  and 
Irenaeus. 


St.  Callistus  and  the  Early  Struggle      5 

light  is  thrown  on  the  metropolitan  Church  by  the  letter 
of  Clement,  its  third  Bishop.  We  find  an  ordered  com- 
munity, with  bishop,  priests,  and  deacons;  perhaps  we 
conceive  it  more  accurately  if  we  say,  with  overseer, 
elders,  and  servants.  Then  the  mists  thicken  again 
and  a  line  of  undistinguished  names  is  all  that  we  can 
discern  until  the  consecration  of  Bishop  Victor  in  the 
year  189. 

One  would  like  to  know  more  about  Bishop  Victor. 
He  seems  to  have  been  the  first  Pope,  in  the  familiar 
sense  of  the  word.  "Pope"  was,  we  know,  a  common 
title  of  bishops  until  the  sixth  century,  but  Victor  is  one 
of  the  makers  of  a  distinctive  Papacy.  We  shall, 
presently,  find  Tertullian  speaking,  with  his  heaviest 
irony,  of  "the  bishop  of  bishops,  the  supreme  pontiff," 
and,  although  he  is  probably  referring  to  Callistus,  he 
is  echoing  the  words  of  some  other  bishop.  History 
points  to  Victor,  who  peremptorily  cut  off  the  Eastern 
churches  from  communion  because  they  would  not 
celebrate  Easter  when  he  did.  They  were  not  much 
concerned,  but  Victor's  premature  assertion  of  leader- 
ship marks  the  beginning  of  the  Papacy. 

The  Roman  Church  was  wealthier  than  those  of  the 
East,  or  had  a  few  wealthy  members  in  the  city.  It 
sent  sums  of  money  to  more  needy  communities  and 
received  flattering  requests  for  advice.  It  was,  how- 
ever, singularly  lacking  in  intellectual  distinction,  and  it 
produced  no  scholar  to  refute  the  subtle  Gnostics  and 
fiery  Montanists  who  came  to  it.  The  waves  of  heresy 
which  raged  over  the  East  broke  harmlessly  on  the 
Italian  shore  of  Christendom.  One  must  not  imagine 
that  it  was  isolated  from  the  East  by  difference  of  tongue. 
Until  the  end  of  the  third  century,  it  was  wholly  Greek : 
more  isolated  from  Rome  than  from  Corinth.     Nor  is 


6       Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

it  less  inaccurate  to  say  that  the  Latins  were  more  in- 
terested in  administration  than  in  speculation.  There 
is  little  trace  of  organization  until  the  days  of  Callistus. 
One  is  more  disposed  to  conceive  the  Roman  Church 
shivering  in  poverty  amid  the  wealth  and  culture  of  the 
metropoHs.  The  disdainful  language  of  the  intellec- 
tuals and  the  wonderful  success  of  Stoicism  in  the 
second  century  excluded  it  from  the  educated  world; 
while  its  secrecy,  its  stern  abstinence  from  games  and 
festivals,  its  scorn  of  the  gods,  and  the  shadow  of 
deadly  illegality  which  brooded  over  it,  made  it  less 
successful  in  appealing  to  the  people  than  the  other 
Eastern  religions. 

If,  however,  the  Roman  See  made  little  impression  in 
Rome,  it  made  some  progress  in  the  Church.  As  the 
fragments  of  Papias  and  Dionysius  show.  Christians 
were  saying,  far  away  in  the  East,  that  it  had  been 
founded  by  Peter;  and  the  Gospels  plainly  made  Peter 
the  chief  of  the  apostles.  The  Roman  See  did  not  yet 
speak  of  having  inherited  the  primacy  of  Peter,  and  it 
had  very  little  share  in  the  prestige  of  Rome.  It  must 
rise  higher  in  the  eyes  of  men,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
second  century  it  was  rising.  Marcia,  the  robust 
ex-slave  who  shared  the  brutal  pleasures  of  Commodus 
and  was  mistress  of  his  harem  of  three  hundred  con- 
cubines, had  a  grateful  recollection  of  earlier  Christian 
kindness,  and  she  secured  peace  and  favour  for  the 
Church.  Here  it  is  that,  for  the  first  time,  a  clear  light 
falls  upon  the  Christian  community  at  Rome  and  upon 
its  bishops. 

In  the  year  217  (or  218),  Bishop  Callistus  succeeded 
Bishop  Zephyrin,  who  had  followed  Victor.  From  the 
fourth  century  he  has  been  counted  one  of  the  greatest 
of  the  early  Popes.    Two  of  the  historic  cemeteries  bore 


St.  Callistus  and  the  Early  Struggle      7 

his  name,  and  there  were  a  Church  of  St.  Calhstus  (or 
CaHxtus,  as  the  Latins  sometimes  misspell  it)  and  a 
Square  of  St.  Callistus  in  the  Trastevere  district. 
Martyrologies  honoured  him  as  a  witness  to  the  faith, 
and  (probably  from  the  seventh  century)  the  Acta  of 
his  martyrdom,  including  a  most  impressive  account  of 
his  virtues  and  miracles,  might  be  consulted  in  the 
archives  of  Sta.  Maria  in  Trastevere.  From  these 
materials,  Moretti  composed  an  eloquent  biography  of 
the  saint,  and  even  the  Bollandists,  more  discreetly, 
and  with  disturbing  hints  that  Christian  scholars  were 
saying  naughty  things  about  the  Acta  S.  Callisti,  set 
their  learned  seal  upon  his  diploma  of  sanctity  and 
martyrdom. 

Contemporary  with  Callistus,  the  saint  and  martyr, 
was  Hippolytus,  the  scholar  and  saint  and  martyr. 
They  were  the  two  shining  jewels  of  the  Roman  Church. 
The  many  works  of  Hippolytus  had  strangely  disap- 
peared, and  tradition  was  not  even  sure  of  which  town 
he  had  been  Bishop;  but  there  was  evidence  enough  to 
connect  him  with  the  Roman  Church  and  to  justify 
the  claim  that  he  was  the  Origen  of  the  West.  When, 
in  1 55 1,  a  broken  marble  statue  of  Hippolytus  was 
discovered  at  Rome,  it  was  devoutly  restored  and  set  up 
in  the  Lateran  Museum.  And  just  three  hundred 
years  afterwards,  in  1851,  there  was  given  to  the  world 
a  lost  work  of  the  saintly  scholar,  from  which  it  is  plain 
that  he  was  the  first  Anti-Pope,  and  that  the  Pope  whom 
he  opposed  and  reviled  was  Callistus.  The  first  book 
of  this  work,  the  Refutation  of  all  Heresies  (sometimes 
called  the  Philosophoumena) ,  had  long  been  known; 
the  manuscript  copy  of  Books  IV.  to  X.  was  found  in  a 
monastery  on  Mount  Athos  in  1842.  Now  that  the 
true  character  of  Hippolytus  is  known,  some  doubt  has 


8       Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

been  cast  upon  his  scholarship,  but  it  was  considerable  for 
his  age  and  environment.  He  was  one  of  the  very  few 
scholars  of  the  Roman  Church  during  several  centuries, 
and  one  chapter  of  his  work  throws  an  interesting  light 
on  the  person  of  Callistus  and  on  a  remarkable  phase  of 
the  development  of  the  Papacy. 

The  controversy  about  the  authorship  of  the  book 
and  about  the  charges  against  Callistus  has  brought  to 
bear  upon  that  period  all  the  available  light;  and  the 
modem  student  will  probably  find  the  truth  somewhere 
between  the  extremes  held  by  the  contending  historians 
of  the  nineteenth  century.^  De  Rossi  himself,  indeed, 
while  pretending  to  support,  entirely  discredits  the 
arguments  with  which  Dollinger,  in  his  years  of  ortho- 
doxy, sought  to  defend  the  impeccability  of  the  Popes 
and  to  prove  the  moral  obliquity  of  all  who  opposed 
them.  The  Italian  archaeologist,  it  is  true,  imputes  to 
Hippolytus  a  malice  which  goes  ill  with  his  reputation  for 
sanctity,  but  perhaps  we  shall  be  able  to  extricate  our- 
selves from  this  painful  dilemma  without  grave  detri- 
ment to  the  character  of  either  saint. 

Callistus  was,  in  the  days  of  Commodus,  a  slave  of 
the  Christian  Carpophorus,  according  to  the  Liber 
Pontificalis.'^    He  was  the  son  of  a  certain  Domitius 

■  Bunsen's  four- volume  HippolyUis  and  his  Age  (1852)  was  sharply 
attacked  by  Dollinger  (Hippolytus  and  Callistus,  English  translation ,  1 876) 
and  more  judiciously  handled  by  G.  B.  de  Rossi  in  his  Bulletino  di 
Archeologia  Cristiana  (1866,  pp.  1-33).  Milman  {History  of  Latin 
Christianity,  vol.  i.)  and  Ch.  Wordsworth  {St.  Hippolytus  and  the  Church 
of  Rome,  1853)  supported  Bunsen.  The  work  itself  is  translated  in 
The  Ante-Nicene  Library,  vol.  vi. 

^  This  anonymous  catalogue  of  the  Popes,  which  I  must  often  quote, 
is  a  quaint  mixture  of  accurate  archives  and  inaccurate  rumours.  The 
first  part  seems  to  have  been  written  in  the  sixth  century,  and  it  was 
continued  as  a  semi-official  record.  See  the  Introduction  to  Duchesne's 
edition. 


St.  Callistus  and  the  Early  Struggle      9 

who  lived  in  the  Transtiberina.  The  master  entrusted 
the  slave  with  money  to  open  a  bank,  and  the  faithful 
put  their  savings  into  it,  but  it  became  known  after  a 
time  that  CalHstus  had — to  quote  the  text  literally — 
"brought  all  the  money  to  naught  and  was  in  diffi- 
culties." He  fled  to  the  Port  of  Rome,  whence,  after 
leaping  into  the  sea  in  despair,  he  was  brought  back  to 
the  house  of  Carpophorus  and  put  in  the  pistrinum,  the 
domestic  mill  in  which  slaves  expiated  their  crimes. 
The  faithful,  prompted  by  Callistus,  begged  his  release 
on  the  ground  that  he  had  money  on  loan  and  could 
repay.  He  had  no  money,  however,  and  he  could  think 
of  nothing  better  than  to  make  a  disturbance  in  the 
synagogue  on  the  Sabbath,  for  which  the  Jews  took  him 
before  the  Prefect  Fuscianus^  and  described  him  as  a 
Christian.  He  was  scourged  and  was  sent  to  the  silver 
or  iron  mines  of  Sardinia — the  Siberia  of  the  Empire — 
from  which  few  returned.  But,  shortly  afterwards, 
Marcia  obtained  the  release  of  the  Christians,  and 
although  Bishop  Victor  had  not  included  the  name  of 
Callistus  in  the  list,  Callistus  persuaded  the  eunuch  to 
insert  it.  Victor,  however,  reflecting  on  the  hostility 
of  his  victims,  sent  him  to  live,  on  a  pension  provided 
by  the  Church,  at  Antium. 

This  narrative  has  been  subjected  to  the  most 
meticulous  criticism,  as  if  it  were  something  novel  or 
important  to  accuse  a  Pope  of  having  committed  certain 
indiscretions  in  his  youth.  It  suffices  to  say  that,  while 
Dollinger  is,  in  the  end,  reduced  to  claiming  that  Hip- 
polytus  was  probably  not  in  Rome  at  the  time,  the  more 
learned  De  Rossi  is  so  impressed  by  the  minuteness  and 
(as  far  as  it  can  be  checked)  the  accuracy  of  the  account 

'  Fuscianus  was  Prefect  between  the  years  i86  and  189,  so  that  we 
have  an  approximate  date  of  these  events. 


10      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

that  he  believes  Hippolytus  to  have  been  a  deacon  of  the 
Church  at  the  time  and  so  to  have  had  official  knowledge 
of  the  facts.  The  single  point  of  any  importance  is  open 
to  a  humane  interpretation.  Did  or  did  not  Callistus 
embezzle  the  money?  If  he  did,  how  came  he  to  be 
elected  bishop?  If  he  did  not,  how  comes  his  sainted 
rival  to  call  him,  as  he  does,  a  fraud  and  impostor? 
We  may  remember  that  financial  troubles  of  this  kind 
are  peculiarly  open  to  opposite  interpretations.  Hip- 
polytus, Victor,  and  Carpophorus,  it  seems,  took  the  less 
charitable  view;  but  it  would  not  be  unnatural  for 
others  to  persuade  themselves,  or  be  persuaded  by 
Callistus,  that  he  was  merely  the  victim  of  circum- 
stances. 

Victor  died  in  198  and  was  succeeded  by  Zephyrin, 
"an  ignorant  and  illiterate  man,"  says  Hippolytus. 
Callistus,  who  had  ceased  to  be  a  slave  when  he  was 
sentenced  to  penal  servitude,  was  recalled  to  Rome  and, 
apparently,  made  first  deacon  (now  called  archdeacon) 
of  the  Church.  He  was  put  in  charge  of  a  cemetery 
in  the  Appian  Way  which  the  community  had  just 
secured,  and  this  cemetery  bears  his  name  to  this  day. 
Hippolytus,  who  was  indignant,  charges  Callistus  with 
ambition,  and  says  that  Zephyrin  was  avaricious  and 
open  to  bribes;  which  we  may  humanely  construe  to 
mean  that  the  able  administration  of  Callistus  enabled 
the  Bishop  to  live  in  some  comfort.  Nor  need  we  de- 
spair of  finding  a  genial  interpretation  of  his  further 
charge,  that  the  deacon  induced  Zephyrin  to  meddle 
with  questions  of  dogma,  and  then,  behind  the  Bishop's 
back,  diplomatically  sympathized  with  both  the  contend- 
ing parties.  The  truth  is  that  the  Latins  were  sorely 
puzzled  by  the  subtleties  with  which  the  Greeks  were 
slowly  and  fiercely  shaping  the  dogma  that  the  Father 


St.  Callistus  and  the  Early  Struggle     ii 

knd  Son  were  one  nature,  yet  two  persons,  and  both 
Zephyrin  and  Callistus  stumbled. 

Callistus  is  further  described  as  assisting  Zephyrin  in 
the  "coercion,"  or,  as  others  translate,  the  "organiza- 
tion" of  the  clergy,  and  this  point  is  of  greater  interest. 
As  far  as  one  can  construe  the  barbarous  Latin  of  the 
Liber  Pontificalis,  Zephyrin  decreed  that  the  priests 
were  not  to  consecrate  the  communion  for  the  people. 
The  sacred  elements  were  to  be  brought  to  them,  on 
glass  patens,  from  the  altar  at  which  the  bishop  said 
mass.  Probably  this  is  the  "coercion"  to  which  Hip- 
polytus  refers,  as  the  aim  was,  plainly,  to  emphasize  the 
subordination  of  the  clergy.  I  would  further  venture  to 
suggest,  against  the  learned  Father  Grisar,  that  this  was 
also  the  occasion  when  the  sphere  of  the  Roman  bishop 
was  divided  into  twenty-five  titiili  (or  parishes).  The 
Liber  Pontificalis  describes  how  Urban  I.,  the  successor 
of  Callistus,  substituted  silver  for  glass  vessels  at  the 
altar,  and  expressly  speaks  of  "twenty-five  patens." 

We  must  conclude  that  Callistus  was  able  as  well  as 
persuasive,  and  we  are  not  surprised  to  learn  that,  when 
Zephyrin  died  in  217  (or,  according  to  another  account, 
218)  he  was  chosen  Bishop.  It  was  customary,  until 
long  afterwards,  to  choose  the  bishop  from  the  body  of 
deacons,  but  Hippolytus  and  his  friends  were  indignant 
at  the  election  of  the  ex-slave,  and  a  schism  occurred. 
Hippolytus  had  the  support  of  the  minority  of  pre- 
cisians and  correct  believers :  Callistus  was  the  favourite 
of  the  majority.  Epithets  of  which  the  modern  mind 
can  hardly  appreciate  the  gravity  were  hurled  from 
camp  to  camp.  "  Patripassian, "  thundered  Hippo- 
lytus: "Ditheist"  retorted  Callistus.  It  is  quite 
clear  that  the  scholar  set  up  a  rival  See  at  Rome.  He 
says  that  Callistus,  when  he  was  elected,  "thought" 


12      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

that  he  had  attained  his  ambition,  and  this  must  mean 
that  he  claimed  himself  to  be  the  true  Bishop  of  Rome. 
Later  tradition,  concealing  the  ugly  schism,  left  the 
bishopric  of  Hippolytus  in  the  air,  or  placed  it  at  the 
Port  of  Rome,  twenty  miles  away.  But  this  picture  of 
daily  combats  implies  that  both  bishops  were  in  Rome, 
and  the  little  flock  was  rent  and  agitated  by  the  first 
Papal  schism. 

The  dogmatic  issue  between  the  rivals  cannot  profit- 
ably be  discussed  here.  The  Church  was  then  in  an 
early  phase  of  the  great  Trinitarian  controversy,  and, 
under  Victor  and  Zephyrin,  the  Roman  clergy  had 
favoured  the  simpler,  or  unitarian,  view.  Sabellius, 
who  has  given  his  name  to  one  form  of  unitarianism, 
was  in  Rome  and  was  supported  by  the  deacon  Callistus : 
indeed,  his  rival  says  that  it  was  Callistus  who  seduced 
Sabellius.  However  that  may  be,  Callistus  shrewdly 
perceived  he  could  not  meet  his  learned  opponent  on 
that  ground.  He  disowned  Sabellius,  and  soon  lost 
himself  in  a  maze  of  technical  theology  into  which  I 
will  not  venture  to  follow  him.  To  theologians  I  leave 
also  the  discussion  of  the  charge  that  Callistus  favoured 
the  rebaptizing  of  converted  heretics. 

It  is  the  charges  of  a  practical  or  disciplinary  nature 
which  best  illustrate  the  character  of  Callistus  and  make 
his  Pontificate  a  milestone  in  the  history  of  the  Papacy. 
When  we  have  made  every  possible  allowance  for 
exaggeration,  they  show  that  Callistus  infused  a  re- 
markable spirit  of  liberalism  into  the  Christian  disci- 
pline and  made  smooth  for  the  tender  feet  of  the  Romans 
the  rough  ways  of  his  Church. 

The  first  charge  is  that  Callistus  admitted  grave 
sinners  to  communion,  if  they  did  penance.  The  an- 
cient discipline  is  well  known.     Those  who  committed 


St.  Callistus  and  the  Early  Struggle     13 

one  "mortal"  sin  after  baptism  could  never  again  be 
admitted  to  communion.  They  were  the  pariahs  of 
the  community,  bearing  in  the  eyes  of  all  the  ineffaceable 
brand  of  their  sin.  There  was  as  yet  no  central  power 
to  define  mortal  sins,  but  sins  of  the  flesh  were,  beyond 
doubt,  in  that  category,  and,  as  such  were  not  uncom- 
mon at  Rome,  a  rigorous  insistence  on  the  old  discipline 
hampered  the  growth  of  the  Church.  Callistus,  with 
princely  liberahty,  abolished  it.  "I  hear,"  says  Ter- 
tullian,  "that  an  edict  has  gone  forth.  The  supreme 
Pontiff,  that  is  to  say,  the  Bishop  of  Bishops,  announces: 
I  will  absolve  even  those  who  are  guilty  of  adultery  and 
fornication,  if  they  do  penance. " '  So  the  narrow  gates 
were  opened  a  little  wider  to  the  warm-blooded  Romans, 
and  the  Church  grew. 

But,  while  modern  sentiment  will  genially  applaud 
this  act  of  the  first  liberal  Pope,  the  fifth  charge  in  the 
indictment,  which  I  take  up  next,  seems  graver.  The 
Greek  text  of  Hippolytus  is  here  particularly  corrupt 
and  ambiguous,  but  the  translation  given  by  the  Rev. 
J.  M.  Macmahon  in  the  Ante-Nicene  Library  is  generally 
faithful : 

For  even  also  he  permitted  females,  if  they  were  unwedded 
and  burned  with  passion  at  an  age  at  all  events  unbecoming 
[more  probably,  at  a  seasonable  age],  or  [and]  if  they  were 
not  disposed  to  overturn  their  dignity  through  a  legal 
marriage,  that  they  might  have  whomsoever  they  would 
choose  as  a  bedfellow,  whether  a  slave  or  free  [freedman], 

'  De  Pudicitia,  i.  Bollinger,  on  no  apparent  ground,  and  against  all 
probability,  refers  this  to  Zephyrin,  and  some  older  writers  think  that 
the  indignant  Puritan  is  quoting  an  African  bishop.  We  must  agree 
with  De  Rossi  that  Tertullian  has  Callistus  in  mind,  especially  when  we 
find  Hippolytus  saying  that  he  was  "the  first"  to  do  this.  An  earlier 
attempt  of  an  Eastern  bishop  might  easily  have  escaped  Hippolytus. 


14     Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

and  that  they,  though  not  legally  married,  might  consider 
such  an  one  as  a  husband.  ^ 


The  Bishop  goes  on  to  describe  in  technical  language, 
which  need  not  be  reproduced  here,  how  the  practice  of 
abortion  spread  among  Christian  ladies  as  a  result  of 
this  license. 

The  apparent  gravity  of  the  charge  has,  however, 
so  far  disappeared  since  the  days  of  Dollinger  that  we 
are  now  asked  to  admire  the  bold  and  exalted  charity 
of  Callistus.  He  is,  of  course,  referring  to  the  Roman 
law  which  forbade  the  widow  or  daughter  of  a  senator, 
under  pain  of  losing  her  dignity  of  clarissima,  to  marry 
a  free-born  man  of  lower  condition ;  a  slave  or  freedman 
she  could  not  validly  marry.  There  cannot  have  been 
very  many  ladies  of  senatorial  rank  in  the  Church  at 
that  time,  seeing  that,  seventy  years  after  the  conversion 
of  Constantine,  St.  Augustine  found  "nearly  the  whole 
of  the  nobility"  still  pagan. "^  There  were,  however, 
some,  as  the  inscriptions  in  the  Catacombs  show,  and 
their  position  was  painful.  They  must  either  mate  with 
a  Christian  slave  or  freedman,  and  be  regarded  by  the 
law  and  their  neighbours  as  living  in  concubinage:  or 
marry  a  free-bom  Christian  of  low  degree  and  thus 
forfeit  their  rank:  or  devote  their  virginity  or  their 
widowhood  to  God.  The  Church  was  concerned  that 
they  should  not  marry  pagan  senators,  who  would  scoff 
at  their  superstitions  and  would  dissipate  their  fortunes. 
Callistus  told  them  that  he  would  recognize  as  valid 
in  conscience  unions  with  slaves  or  freedmen  which  the 

'  Vol.  vi.,  p.  346.  This  is  a  fair,  if  inelegant,  rendering  of  the  Greek 
text  given  by  Duncker  and  Schneidewin  in  their  edition  of  the  Refutation, 
and  it  corresponds  with  the  Latin  translation  given  by  those  editors  and 
with  De -Rossi.     Dollinger  is  alone  in  his  interpretation. 

'  Confessions,  viii.,  2. 


St.  Callistus  and  the  Early  Struggle     15 

State  did  not  countenance.  The  number  of  ladies  to 
whom  the  Hcense  extended  must  have  been  small, 
and  Hippolytus  evidently  exaggerates  the  occasional 
scandals  which  followed.  The  impartial  historian, 
however,  will  hardly  regard  the  action  of  Callistus 
as  a  humanitarian  protest  against  caste-distinctions. 
Such  distinctions  were  maintained  by  the  Church 
for  centuries  afterwards  in  its  legislation  about  the 
clergy,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  measure  was 
profitable  to  the  Church.  In  practice,  indeed,  these 
secret  marriages  would  easily  lead  to  disorder.  A 
Christian  lady  would,  if  she  were  to  keep  her  union 
secret,  merely  choose  a  "husband"  among  her  slaves 
or  freedmen,  and  would  be  tempted  to  use  ilHcit  means 
when  her  "marriage"  threatened  to  be  exposed  too 
plainly  to  pagan  eyes. 

The  other  charges  against  Callistus  show  a  general 
policy  of  liberality.  He  decreed  that  a  bishop  who  was 
convicted  of  mortal  sin  was  not  necessarily  to  be  deposed : 
he  permitted  men  who  had  been  twice  or  thrice  married 
to  become  deacons  or  priests:  he  directed  that  "men  in 
orders"  must  not  be  disturbed  if  they  married.  Some 
writers  think  that,  in  the  latter  case,  he  was  referring 
only  to  men  in  minor  orders,  but  that  would  not  have 
been  a  daring  innovation.  Hippolytus,  in  fact,  makes 
his  policy  and  his  character  clearer  by  telling  us,  indig- 
nantly, how  Callistus  searched  the  Scriptures  for  proof 
that  the  Church  must  be  wide  enough  to  embrace  both 
saints  and  sinners.  There  had  been  clean  and  unclean 
animals  in  the  ark:  Christ  had  said  that  the  tares  must 
grow  up  with  the  wheat:  and  so  on.  His  reputation 
for  liberality  spread  so  far  in  the  Church  that,  while 
Tertullian  grumbled  in  Africa,  a  quaint  Syrian  charla- 
tan named  Alcibiades  was  attracted  from  the  East  to 


1 6      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Rome.  He  brought  a  mystic  work,  given  to  him  by  two 
angels  of  the  imposing  height  of  ninety-six  miles  each, 
and  he  proclaimed  that  his  new  form  of  baptism  ab- 
solved even  from  certain  gross  sins  which  he  very  freely 
and  suggestively  described. 

The  Church  grew  during  these  years  of  peace,  of 
able  organization,  and  of  humanization.  Callistus 
"made  a  basilica  beyond  the  Tiber" — the  Liber  Pon- 
tificalis  says — and  there  is  an  interesting  passage  in  the 
Historia  Augusta  which  seems  to  refer  to  this  first 
Christian  chapel  at  Rome.  The  biographer  of  Alex- 
ander Severus  says  (c.  xliii.)  that  the  Emperor  wished 
to  give  the  Christians  the  right  to  have  public  chapels, 
but  his  officials  protested  that  ''the  temples  would  be 
deserted — all  Rome  would  become  Christian."  This 
is  obviously  a  piece  of  later  Christian  fiction.  In  a 
more  plausible  paragraph,  however,  Lampridius  tells 
us  that  the  Christians  occupied  a  "public  place,"  to 
which  the  innkeepers  laid  claim,  and  the  Emperor 
decided  that  "it  was  better  for  God  to  be  worshipped 
there  in  some  form  than  for  the  innkeepers  to  have  it. " 
It  is  probable  enough  that  this  inn  is  the  taverna  meri- 
toria  (wine  shop  and  restaurant)  referred  to  by  Dio 
Cassius':  among  the  portents  which  accompanied  the 
struggles  of  Octavian  a  stream  of  oil  had  burst  forth 
in  this  hostel  in  the  Transtiberina.  We  know  from 
Orosius^  that  the  Christians  claimed  the  occurrence  in 
later  years  as  a  presage  of  the  coming  of  Christ.  The 
age,  if  not  the  disputed  ownership,  of  the  place  suggests 
a  dilapidated,  if  not  deserted,  building;  and  if  we  may 
in  one  detail  trust  that  interesting  romance,  the  Acta 
S.  Callisti,  we  have  a  picture  of  the  Christians  of  the 
third  century  meeting  at  last,  under  their  enterprising 

•XLVIII.  »VI.,  18. 


St.  Callistus  and  the  Early  Struggle     17 

Bishop,  in  the  upper  or  dining  room  of  this  humble  old 
inn  in  the  despised  Transtiberina.  This  was  the  high- 
water  mark  of  a  century  and  a  half  of  progress. 

Only  one  other  act  is  authentically  recorded  of  the 
brief  rule  of  Bishop  Callistus:  he  directed  his  people  to 
fast  on  three  Sabbaths  in  the  year.  This  may  seem 
inconsistent  with  his  genial  policy,  but  we  must  re- 
member that  rigorists  abounded  at  Rome  and  demanded 
sterner  ways.  Callistus,  apparently,  merely  sanctioned 
some  slight  traditional  observance  and  thus  virtually 
relieved  the  faithful  of  others. 

It  may  be  fascinating  to  conjecture  what  so  enterpris- 
ing a  Pope  would  have  done  with  the  ecclesiastical 
system  if  he  had  lived  long  enough,  but  Callistus  died, 
according  to  the  best  authorities,  in  the  year  222,  four 
or  five  years  after  his  consecration.  He  did  not  die  a 
martyr.  In  opening  his  account  of  the  career  of  Callis- 
tus, the  rival  Bishop  says:  "This  man  suffered  martyr- 
dom when  Fuscianus  was  Prefect,  and  this  was  the  sort 
of  martyrdom  he  suffered."  It  is  inconceivable  that 
Hippolytus  should  use  such  language  in  Rome  after  the 
death  of  Callistus  if  the  Pope  had  really  suffered  for 
the  faith.  No  Christian  was  executed  at  Rome  under 
Alexander  Severus.  We  must  suppose  that  after  his 
death,  if  not  during  his  life,  Callistus  was  applauded  as  a 
martyr  because  of  his  banishment  to  Sardinia,  and 
probably  this  gave  rise  to  the  legend  of  his  martyrdom, 
which  first  appears,  as  a  bald  statement,  in  the  fourth 
century.  The  Acta  S.  Callisti  may  be  traced  to  about 
the  seventh  century,  and  may  be  a  pious  contribution 
to  the  rejoicing  of  the  faithful  at  the  transfer  of  his 
bones  to  Sta.  Maria  in  Trastevere.^     The  recklessness 

'  Neither  this  church  nor  the  Basilica  S.  Callisti  can  have  been  the 
original  meeting-place,  though  the  latter  may  have  been  founded  on  it. 


i8      Crises  in  the  Hib^tory  of  the  Papacy 

with  which  the  writer  describes  the  gentle  and  friendly 
Alexander  Sevenis  as  a  truculent  enemy  of  the  Chris- 
tians was  noted  even  by  mediaeval  historians,  and  the 
narrative  is  now  regarded  as,  in  the  words  of  Bollinger, 
"a  piece  of  fiction  from  beginning  to  end. "  Yet  Father 
Grisar''  describes  Callistus  as  a  martyr. 

Hippolytus  maintained  his  little  schism  under  Urban 
I.  and  Pontianus,  while  the  orthodox  community  pros- 
pered in  the  sun  of  imperial  favour.  Then  the  grim 
Maximinus  succeeded  Alexander  on  the  throne,  and  the 
clouds  gather  again  over  Christendom.  We  just  discern 
Pope  and  Anti-Pope,  Pontianus  and  Hippolytus, 
passing  together  to  the  deadly  mines  of  Sardinia. 
Later  legend  generously  reconciled  the  rivals  and  gave 
to  both  of  them  the  martyr's  crown ;  but  the  authority 
is  late  and  worthless.  In  whatever  manner  he  ended 
his  career,  Rome  was  too  proud  of  its  one  scholar  to 
darken  his  memory,  and  the  names  of  Hippolytus  and 
Callistus  shone  together  in  ecclesiastical  literature 
until  that  fateful  discovery  among  the  dusty  parchments 
of  the  monks  of  Mount  Athos. 

'  History  of  Rome  and  the  Popes  in  the  Early  Middle  Ages,  i.,  313. 


CHAPTER  II 

ST.  DAMASUS  AND  THE  TRIUMPH 

IN  the  year  355,  the  Christians  of  the  imperial  city 
startled  their  neighbours  by  a  series  of  violent  and 
threatening  demonstrations.  Armed  crowds  of  them 
filled  the  streets,  and  monks  and  sacred  virgins  hid 
themselves  from  the  riot.  An  inquiring  pagan  would 
have  learned  that  the  Emperor  Constantius,  who  had 
waded  to  supremacy  through  a  stream  of  blood,  was 
attempting  to  force  on  their  Bishop  and  themselves  the 
damnable  heresy  of  Arius.  A  few  weeks  before,  Con- 
stantius had  sent  his  eunuch  with  rich  presents  to 
Liberius,  suavely  asking  him  to  condemn  a  certain  fiery 
Athanasius  who  resisted  the  heresy.  Liberius  had 
courageously  refused,  and,  when  the  eunuch  had  cun- 
ningly left  the  gifts  beside  the  tomb  of  St.  Peter,  the 
Bishop  had  had  them  cast  out  of  the  church.  When 
the  exasperated  eunuch  had  returned  to  the  Emperor 
at  Milan,  the  Christian  community  had  prepared  for 
drastic  action,  and  it  was  presently  known  that  the 
civic  officials  at  Rome  had  received  orders  to  seize  the 
Bishop  and  send  him  to  Milan.  The  Christians  threat- 
ened resistance,  and  for  a  few  days  the  city  was  en- 
livened by  their  turbulence.  At  last,  Liberius  was 
dragged  from  his  house  at  night  and  taken  to  Milan; 
and,  since  he  bravely  resisted  the  Emperor  to  his  face, 
he  was  sent  on  to  remote  and  inhospitable  Thrace. 

19 


20      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Then  the  clergy,  and  as  many  of  the  faithful  as  could 
enter,  gathered  in  their  handsome  new  basilica  on  the 
site  of  the  Laterani  Palace  and  swore  a  great  oath  that 
they  would  know  no  other  bishop  as  long  as  Liberius 
lived.  One,  at  least,  of  the  clergy  set  out — no  doubt 
amidst  the  cheers  of  the  people — to  accompany  his 
Bishop  into  exile;  this  was  the  deacon  Damasus,  who 
was  destined  to  be  the  next  Pope  of  prominence  in 
the  Roman  calendar. 

The  scene  reminds  us  forcibly  of  the  dramatic  trans- 
formation which  had  taken  place  since,  a  century  before, 
Pope  and  Anti-Pope  had  been  sent  in  chains  to  the 
mines.  For  fifty  years  after  that  date  the  Liber  Pon- 
tificalis  is  a  necrology,  a  chronicle  of  gloomy  life  in  the 
Catacombs.  Eleven  Popes  out  of  the  thirteen  who 
followed  Urban  I.  are — most  of  them  wrongly — de- 
scribed as  martyrs,  and  the  record  of  their  actions 
shrinks  to  a  few  lines.  At  last,  with  Bishop  Eusebius, 
the  chronicle  brightens  and  lengthens;  and  then,  under 
the  name  of  Silvester,  it  swells  to  thirty  pages  and 
glows  with  tokens  of  imperial  generosity.  The  darkest 
hour  of  the  Church  has  suddenly  changed  into  a  dazzling 
splendour. 

The  historical  revolution  reflected  in  this  early 
chronicle  of  the  Popes  is  w^ell  known.  For  eighty  years 
after  the  death  of  Callistus,  the  hope  of  the  faithful  was 
painfully  strained.  The  Decian  persecution  (249-251) 
sent  some  to  the  heroic  death  of  the  martyr,  many  to  the 
corrupt  officials  who  sold  false  certificates  of  apostasy, 
and  very  many  back  to  the  pagan  temples.  Then 
another  schism  and  another  Anti-Pope  appeared;  and 
the  alliance  with  St.  Cyprian  and  the  African  bishops, 
which  had  at  first  promised  aid  against  the  schismatics, 
ended  in  a  contemptuous  repudiation  by  the  African 


St.  Damasus  and  the  Triumph  21 

bishops  of  Rome's  claim  to  jurisdiction.  The  Valerian 
persecution  dissolved  the  feud  in  blood,  and,  then,  forty 
years  of  peace  enabled  the  Roman  Christians  to  recover 
and  to  extend  their  domain.  Two  or  three  small 
basiliccE  were  erected  or  adapted.  But,  in  the  year  303, 
the  new  hope  was  chilled  by  the  dreaded  summons  of  the 
persecutor,  and,  for  the  last  time,  stem-set  men  and 
gentle  maidens  set  out  to  face  the  headsman.  Rome 
did  not  suffer  much  in  the  next  seven  years  of  persecu- 
tion, but  one  can  imagine  the  feelings  of  the  faithful 
when  they  saw  century  thus  succeed  century  without 
bringing  any  larger  hope  even  of  a  free  place  in  the  sun. 
And  then,  in  rapid  succession,  came  the  triumph  of 
Constantine,  the  issue  of  their  charter  of  liberty  (the 
Edict  of  Milan,  313),  the  imperial  profession  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  grant  to  the  Christian  clergy  of  the  privileges 
of  Roman  priests,  and  the  building  of  large  basiliccB 
and  scattering  of  gold  and  silver  over  their  marble 
altars.  Even  the  transfer  of  the  court  to  Constanti- 
nople hardly  dimmed  the  new  hope.  It  remained  "a 
new  form  of  ambition  to  desert  the  altars, "  the  pagans 
murmured,  and  no  one  dare  thwart  the  zeal  of  the  clergy. 
So,  by  the  year  355,  when  deacon  Damasus  makes  an 
inglorious  entrance  into  history,  Rome  had  a  large 
Christian  community  and  at  least  half  a  dozen  churches. 
But  Christendom  was  now  overcast  by  the  triumph  of 
Arianism  and  an  Arian  Emperor,  and  the  struggle  put 
an  insupportable  strain  on  the  character  of  the  faithful. 
At  first,  the  prospect  at  Rome  was  brave  and  inspiring. 
They  would  all  be  true  to  their  martyr-bishop ;  with  that 
thrilling  cry  in  his  ears  the  deacon  set  out  for  Thrace. 
In  a  very  short  time,  he  was  back  in  Rome,  having 
changed  his  mind:  "fired  with  ambition,"  his  critics 
said.    And,  in  another  short  time,  the  chief  deacon  Felix, 


22      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

who  also  had  taken  the  oath,  Hstened  to  the  Arian 
court  and  became  Bishop  of  Rome;  and  Damasus  and 
most  of  the  clergy  transferred  their  loyalty  to  him. 
Then,  in  two  or  three  years,  Liberius  grew  tired  of 
Thrace,  and  signed  some  sort  of  heretical  formula,  and 
came  back  to  Rome;  and  the  bloody  struggle  of  Pope 
and  Anti-Pope  led  to  a  train  of  sorrows  which  darken 
the  life  of  St.  Damasus. 

He  had  been  bom,  probably  at  Rome,  though  his 
father  is  said  to  have  been  a  Spaniard,  about  the  year 
304. '  The  father  had  been  a  priest  in  the  service  of  the 
little  basilica  of  St.  Lawrence  in  the  city — I  am  not 
impressed  by  Marucchi's  contention  that  he  was  a 
bishop — and  had  brought  up  Damasus  in  the  same 
service.  The  mother  Laurentia  was  pious:  the  sister 
Irene  consecrated  her  virginity  to  God.  Damasus 
became,  and  remained,  a  deacon,  and  was  at  least  in  his 
fiftieth  year  when  he  turned  his  back  upon  the  heroic 
road  to  Thrace.  He  was  popular  in  the  new  Christian 
Rome,  which  Jerome  describes  so  darkly;  envious  folk 
called  him  "the  tickler  of  matrons'  ears,"  and  even 
worse.  But  we  lose  sight  of  him  again  for  ten  years 
after  his  first  appearance.  ^ 

'  His  latest  biographer,  the  learned  Father  Marucchi,  says  305, 
but  St.  Jerome  does  not  say  that  he  was  "eighty  years  old"  at  death 
(in  384);  he  says,  "nearly  eighty."  See  Father  Marucchi's  II  Papa 
Damaso  (1907)  and  Christian  Epigraphy  (English  trans.  1912),  M. 
Rade's  Damasus,  Bischof  von  Rom  (1882)  is  a  httle  more  critical. 

^  The  less  flattering  statements  about  Damasus  are  generally  taken 
from  a  certain  Libellus  precum,  or  petition,  which  was  presented  to  the 
Emperors  by  two  hostile,  though  esteemed  and  orthodox,  priests  about 
the  year  384.  The  attack  on  Damasus  is,  however,  in  a  preface  to  the 
petition,  which  was  probably  not  put  before  the  Emperors.  We  must 
make  allowance  for  bitter  hostility,  but  we  shall  find  some  of  their 
strangest  statements  confirmed  by  the  highest  autliorities.  The 
Libellus  is  reproduced  in  Migne's  Patrologia  Latitia,  vol.  iii. 


St.  Damasus  and  the  Triumph  23 

The  events  of  those  ten  years  are,  however,  important 
for  the  understanding  of  Damasus  and  his  Church,  and 
must  be  briefly  reviewed.  That  the  clergy  had,  in  the 
presence  of  the  people,  sworn  to  be  true  to  Liberius,  and 
that  the  majority  of  them  broke  their  oath,  is  confirmed 
by  St.  Jerome  in  his  Chronicle.  Jerome,  a  decisive  au- 
thority, tells  also  of  the  fall  of  Liberius,  and  this  is  also 
recorded  by  Athanasius,  who  writes  the  whole  story. 
When  Felix  consented  to  be  made  bishop,  the  people 
were  so  infuriated  that  he  had  to  be  consecrated  by  the 
Emperor's  Arian  bishops  in  the  palace:  a  group  of 
eunuchs  nominally  representing  the  people,  who  raged 
without.  Most  of  the  clergy  accepted  Felix,  but  a 
minority,  with  the  mass  of  the  people,  refused  to  do  so, 
and,  for  two  years,  he  gave  his  blessing  to  very  thin 
congregations,  or  to  empty  benches.  Then  the  Empe- 
ror came  to  Rome,  and  an  imposing  deputation  of  noble 
Christian  ladies  prevailed  on  him  to  recall  Liberius. 
The  Great  Circus  provided  a  new  sensation  for  its 
400,000  idlers  when  an  imperial  messenger  announced 
that  henceforward  Liberius  and  Felix  would  rule  their 
respective  flocks  side  by  side  in  Rome.  "Two  circus- 
factions,  so  two  bishops, "  the  pagan  majority  ironically 
replied:  but  the  Christian  laity  ominously  thundered, 
"  One  God,  one  Christ,  one  Bishop. "  So  when  Liberius, 
"overcome  by  the  weariness  of  exile  and  embracing  the 
heretical  perversity"  (says  St.  Jerome  in  his  Chronicle), 
returned  to  Rome,  he  was  received  "as  a  conqueror," 
His  loyal  flock,  finely  indifferent  to  the  way  in  which  he 
had  purchased  his  return,  lined  the  route  as  men  had 
done  to  welcome  a  triumphing  general  in  the  old  days. 

This  must  have  been  about  the  end  of  357  or  the 
beginning  of  358,  and  we  shall  not  dwell  on  the  scenes 
which  followed.     Felix  and  his  followers  were  driven 


24      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

out  of  the  city.  Getting  reinforcements,  apparently, 
they  returned  and  took  possession  of  the  Basihca 
Julii  in  the  Transtiberina ;  but  the  mass  of  the  faithful, 
led  by  Christian  senators  or  officers,  took  the  church  by 
storm,  and  again  swept  them  out  of  Rome.  The  Liber 
Pontificalis  records  that  a  number  of  the  clergy  were 
slain  in  the  battle,  and,  becoming  hopelessly  confused 
between  Pope  and  Anti-Pope,  it  awards  these  followers 
of  Felix  the  palm  of  martyrdom.  But  it  appears  that 
the  Felicians  were  strong,  and  for  six  years  held  several 
of  the  smaller  churches;  rival  clerics  and  laymen  could 
not  meet  in  the  baths  and  streets  without  violent  results. 
However,  Felix  died  in  365,  and  Liberius  wisely  adopted 
his  clerical  supporters.' 

Damasus  remains  in  decent  obscurity  during  these 
years,  and  we  may  assume  that  he  repented  his  mistake, 
and  renewed  his  allegiance  to  Liberius.  But  Liberius 
followed  his  rival  in  the  next  year  (366)  and  the  real 
career  of  Damasus  opened.  A  well-known  passage  in 
the  Res  Gestce  of  the  contemporary  pagan  Ammianus 
Marcellinus^  tells  how,  by  that  time,  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  scoured  the  city  in  a  gorgeous  chariot,  gave 
banquets  which  excelled  those  of  the  Emperor,  and 
received  the  smiles  and  rich  presents  of  all  the  fine 
ladies  of  Rome;  and  the  querulous  old  soldier  is  not 
surprised,  he  says,  that  Damasus  and  his  rival  Ursicinus 

'  The  Liber  Pontificalis,  which  gives  these  events,  first  lets  the  schis- 
matic FeHx  die  in  peace,  and  then  introduces  into  the  series  of  Pontiffs 
a  FeHx  II.,  saint  and  martyr!  To  this  day  the  fortunate  FeHx  bears 
these  honours  in  the  Hturgy.  It  was  discovered,  in  1582,  that  the  Anti- 
Pope  FeHx  had  been  confused  with  a  real  saint  and  martyr  of  that  name, 
and  the  question  of  displacing  him  was  debated  at  Rome.  But  the 
miraculous  discovery  of  an  inscription  in  his  favour  put  an  end  to  criti- 
cism. The  genuine  authorities  arc  agreed  that  Felix  died  comfortably 
in  his  house  on  the  road  to  the  Port  of  Rome.  *  XXVII. ,  3. 


St.  Damasus  and  the  Triumph  25 

(as  the  name  runs  in  official  documents)  were  "swollen 
with  ambition  "  for  the  seat,  and  stirred  up  riots  so  fierce 
that  the  Prefect  was  driven  out  of  Rome,  and,  after  one 
fight,  a  hundred  and  thirty-seven  corpses  were  left  on 
the  floor  of  one  of  the  "Christian  conventicles." 
Jerome,'  Rufinus,^  and  other  ecclesiastical  writers  of 
the  time  place  the  fatal  rioting  beyond  question,  and 
we  may  therefore,  with  a  prudent  reserve,  follow  the 
closer  description  given  in  the  Lihellus. 

As  soon  as  the  death  of  Liberius  became  known,  in 
September,  366,  the  remnant  of  his  original  supporters 
met  in  the  Basilica  Julii,  across  the  river,  and  elected 
the  deacon  Ursicinus,  who  was  at  once  consecrated  by  a 
provincial  bishop.  It  was  an  act  of  defiance  to  Dam- 
asus, the  popular  candidate,  whom  they  were  deter- 
mined to  exclude.  Then,  say  these  writers,  Damasus 
gathered  and  bribed  a  mob,  armed  with  staves,  and 
for  three  days  there  was  a  bloody  fight  for  the  posses- 
sion of  the  basilica.  A  week  after  the  death  of  Liber- 
ius (or  on  October  ist),  Damasus  marched  with  his 
mob,  now  effectively  reinforced  by  gladiators,  to  the 
Lateran  Basilica,  and  was  consecrated  there.  After  this, 
he  bribed  the  Prefect  Viventius  to  expel  seven  priests  of 
the  rival  party,  but  the  people  rescued  them  and  con- 
ducted them  to  the  Basilica  Liberii,  or  Basilica  Sicinini 
(now  Sta.  Maria  Maggiore),  in  the  poor  quarter  across 
the  river.  In  this  chapel  the  rebels  were  at  worship  in 
the  early  morning  of  October  26th  when  a  crowd  of 
gladiators,  charioteers,  diggers  (or  guardians  of  the 
Catacombs) ,  and  other  ruffians  (in  the  pay  of  Damasus, 
of  course)  fell  on  them  with  staves,  swords,  and  axes, 
and  an  historic  fight  ensued.  The  Damasians  stormed 
the  barricaded  door,  fired  the  sacred  building,  mounted 

'  Year  369.  » II.,  10. 


26      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

the  roof,  and  flung  tiles  on  the  Ursicinians.  In  the 
end  the  corpses  of  one  hundred  and  sixty — Ammianus 
was  too  modest — followers  of  Ursicinus,  of  both  sexes, 
lay  on  the  floor  of  the  blood-splashed  chapel,  and  Ur- 
sicinus and  his  chief  supporters  were  sent  into  exile. 

Such  is  the  tale  of  woe  of  the  priests  Faustinus  and 
Marcellinus,  and  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  for 
months  the  most  savage  encounters  desecrated  the 
chapels  and  Catacombs  of  Rome.  As  to  whether  Dam- 
asus  was  or  was  not  elected  in  his  Church  of  St.  Law- 
rence in  the  city  before  the  election  of  Ursicinus  the 
authorities  are  not  agreed;  and  it  must  be  left  to  the 
decision  of  the  reader  whether  those  who  secured  his 
triumph  were  really  a  hired  mob  of  gladiators  and  diggers 
or  a  troop  of  pious  and  indignant  admirers.  Jerome, 
whose  modern  biographer,  Amedee  Thierry,  ^  plausibly 
contends  that  he  was  studying  in  Rome  at  the  time, 
expressly  says  that  the  followers  of  his  patron  Damasus 
were  the  aggressors,  and  that  many  men  and  women 
were  slain.  Rufinus  is  more  favourable  to  the  cause  of 
Damasus,  but  he  admits  that  the  churches  were  "filled 
with  blood." 

The  Emperor  seems  not  to  have  been  convinced  by 
the  report  of  the  triumphant  faction,  and  in  the  follow- 
ing year  he  permitted  Ursicinus  and  his  followers  to 
return  to  Rome.  But  the  trouble  was  renewed,  and 
the  Anti-Pope  was  again  banished.  His  obstinate  ad- 
mirers then  met  in  the  Catacombs,  and  another  fierce 
and  fatal  fight  occurred  in  the  cemetery  of  St.  Agnes, 
where  the  servants  of  Damasus  surprised  them.  It  is 
clear  that  Damasus  had  the  support  of  the  wealthy  and 
the  favour  of  the  pagan  officials,  but  his  rival  must  have 
controlled  a  very  large,  if  not  the  larger,  part  of  the 

'  Saint  Jerome,  1867. 


St.  Damasus  and  the  Triumph  2^] 

people.  The  forces  engaged,  and  the  growth  of  the 
Christian  body,  may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that, 
as  Ammianus  says,  the  Prefect  Viventius  was  compelled 
to  retire  to  the  suburbs.  He  was  promptly  replaced,  in 
the  attempt  to  control  the  rioters,  by  the  ruthless  and 
impartial  Maximinus,  the  Prefect  of  the  Food-distribu- 
tion; and  clerics  and  laymen  were  indiscriminately  put 
to  the  torture  and  punished.  At  length,  in  368,  one  of 
the  last  of  the  sober  old  Roman  patricians,  Prastextatus, 
became  Prefect,  and  put  an  end  to  the  riots.  The 
reflections  of  Praetextatus  and  Symmachus  and  other 
cultivated  pagans  are  not  recorded,  but  we  are  told  by 
St.  Jerome  that,  when  Damasus  endeavoured  to  con- 
vert the  Prefect,  he  mischievously  replied:  "Make  me 
Bishop  of  Rome  and  I  will  be  a  Christian. " 

Ursicinus  went  to  din  his  grievances  into  the  ears  of 
provincial  bishops,  and  there  seems  to  be  good  ground 
for  the  statement  in  the  Libellus  that  some  of  these  were 
indignant  with  Damasus,  It  is  at  least  clear  that 
Damasus  went  on  to  obtain  from  the  Emperor  a  con- 
cession of  the  most  far-reaching  character.  The 
imperial  rescript  making  this  concession — one  of  the 
really  important  steps  in  the  history  of  the  Papacy  and 
of  the  Church— has  strangely  disappeared,  but  we  find 
the  bishops  of  a  later  Roman  synod  (in  378  or  379) 
writing  to  Gratian  and  Valentinian  that,  when  Ursicinus 
was  banished,  the  Emperors  had  decreed  that  "the 
Roman  bishop  should  have  power  to  inquire  into  the 
conduct  of  the  other  priests  of  the  churches,  and  that 
affairs  of  religion  should  be  judged  by  the  pontiff  of 
religion  with  his  colleagues."'  A  later  rescript  of 
Gratian  indicates  that  the  Bishop  of  Rome  was  to 
have  five  or  seven  colleagues  with  him  in  these  inquir- 

'  Mansi,  Sacrorum  Conciliorum  Collectio,  iii.,  625. 


28      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

ies ' ;  and  further  light  is  thrown  on  the  matter  by  St.  Am- 
brose who  observes^  that,  by  a  degree  of  Valentinian, 
a  defendant  in  a  religious  dispute  was  to  have  a  judge 
of  a  fitting  character  (a  cleric)  and  of  at  least  equal 
rank.  Possibly  the  truculent  impartiality  of  Max- 
iminus  was  the  immediate  occasion  for  asking  this 
privilege,  and  Valentinian  would  not  find  it  unseemly 
that  bishops  should  adjudicate  on  these  new  types  of 
quarrels.  But  we  have  in  this  last  document  the  germ 
of  great  historical  developments.  The  clergy  were 
virtually  withdrawn  from  secular  jurisdiction;  the 
spiritual  court  was  set  up  in  face  of  the  secular.  More- 
over, if  defendants  were  to  be  judged  only  by  their 
equals,  who  was  to  judge  the  Bishop  of  Rome? 

Damasus  at  once  used  his  powers.  He  convoked  a 
synod  at  Rome,  and  we  may  realize  the  enormous 
progress  that  the  Church  had  made  in  fifty  years  when 
we  learn  that  ninety-three  Italian  bishops  responded  to 
his  summons.  On  a  charge  of  favouring  Arianism, 
which  seems  to  cloak  a  real  charge  of  favouring  Ursi- 
cinus,  the  bishops  of  Parma  and  Puteoli  were  deposed  by 
the  synod,  and  they  appealed  in  vain  to  the  court. 
Henceforward  bishops — under  the  presidency  of  the 
Bishop  of  Rome — were  to  judge  bishops.  The  cultivated 
and  courtly  Auxentius  of  Milan  was  next  condemned, 
but  he  was  too  secure  in  the  favour  of  the  Empress  to 
do  more  than  smile.  Neither  he  nor  his  great  successor, 
St.  Ambrose,  acknowledged  any  authority  over  them 
on  the  part  of  the  Roman  bishop. 

From  this  synod,  moreover,  the  bishops  wrote  to  the 
Emperor  to  ask  that  secular  officials  should  be  in- 
structed to  enforce  their  jurisdiction  and  sentences,  and 
we  shall  hardly  be  unjust  if  we  suspect  the  direct  or 

'  Mansi,  iii.,  628.  ^  Ep.,  xxi. 


St.  Damasus  and  the  Triumph  29 

indirect  suggestion  of  Damasus  in  their  further  requests. 
They  asked  that  bishops  might  be  tried  either  by  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  or  by  a  council  of  fifteen  bishops,  and 
that  the  Bishop  of  Rome  himself  might,  "if  his  case 
were  not  laid  before  an  (episcopal)  council,"  defend 
himself  before  the  Imperial  Council.  ^  This  bold .  at- 
tempt of  the  Roman  bishop  to  judge  all  bishops,  yet  be 
judged  by  none,  seems  to  have  displeased  the  Emperor, 
who  may  have  consulted  the  Bishop  of  Milan.  We 
have,  at  least,  no  indication  that  the  privilege  was 
granted.  But  the  other  points  were  granted,  and 
instructions  were  issued  to  the  secular  officers,  in  Gaul 
as  well  as  in  Italy,  apprising  them  of  the  juridical 
autonomy  of  the  Church  and  of  their  duty  to  enforce 
its  decisions.  Out  of  his  troubles  Damasus  had  won  a 
most  important  step  in  the  making  of  the  Papacy. 

Unfriendly  critics  might  suggest  that  Damasus  paid 
a  price  for  these  powers.  A  curious  passage  in  the 
historian  Socrates^  tells  us  that,  in  the  year  370,  Valen- 
tinian  decreed  that  every  man  might  henceforward 
marry  two  wives.  The  statement  is  often  rejected  as 
preposterous,  but  we  know  that  Valentinian  had, 
shortly  before,  divorced  his  wife,  Severa,  in  favour  of 
the  more  comely  Justina,  and  it  is  probable  enough 
that  he  passed  a  law  of  divorce.  The  learned  Tillemont 
blushes  when  he  finds  no  ecclesiastical  protest  at  the 
time  against  this  flagrant  return  to  pagan  morals. 

However  that  may  be,  Damasus,  from  his  palace  by 
the  Lateran  Basilica,  continued  to  strengthen  his  new 
authority  and  to  regulate  the  disordered  Church. 
Rome  still  harboured  numbers  of  rebels,  and  they  seem 
to  have  caused  him  serious  annoyance  by  a  persistent 
charge   that,  in   earlier  years,  he  had   sinned   with  a 

»  Mansi,  iii.,  624.  '  IV.,  26. 


30      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Roman  matron.  A  converted  and  relapsed  Jew  was 
put  forward  as  the  chief  witness  to  the  charge,  and, 
when  the  young  Emperor  Gratian  had  failed  to  impress 
Rome  by  his  personal  assurance  that  Damasus  was 
innocent,  a  Roman  synod  of  forty-four  bishops  professed 
to  investigate  and  dismiss  the  accusation.  Ursicinus 
was  now,  however,  living  at  Milan,  and  it  is  not  im- 
plausibly suggested  that  his  insistence  made  some 
impression  on  the  puritanical  young  Emperor.  The 
case  was  submitted  to  the  Council  of  Aquileia  in  380, 
at  which  St.  Ambrose  presided,  and  the  bishops  de- 
clared the  innocence  of  Damasus  and  demanded  the 
secular  punishment  of  his  accusers,  who  were  now 
scattered  over  Europe.  The  Roman  rebels  then 
masked  their  hostility  by  joining  an  eccentric,  though 
orthodox,  sect  in  the  capital  whose  ascetic  leader  bore 
the  name  of  Lucifer.  On  these  Luciferians  in  turn  the 
hand  of  Damasus  fell  with  ruthless  severity.  Their 
renowned  IVIacarius,  the  champion  faster  of  the  time 
outside  the  Egyptian  desert,  was  physically  dragged  into 
court  and  banished,  and  the ' '  police  "  pursued  them  from 
one  secret  meeting-place  to  another.  It  is  at  this  time 
that  Faustinus  aiid  Marcellinus,  who  had  joined  the 
rigorous  sect,  addressed  their  Libelliis  to  the  Emperors. 
Over  the  remainder  of  Italy  and  over  Gaul  Damasus 
did  not  press  the  virtual  primacy  which  he  had  won  from 
the  imperial  authorities,  and  the  later  language  of  Leo 
and  Gregory  makes  it  advisable  for  us  to  grasp  clearly 
the  situation  in  the  fourth  century.  There  was  no  ques- 
tion of  Papal  supremacy.  No  important  decision  was 
reached  by  Damasus  apart  from  a  synod,  and  the  See 
of  Milan  was  not  regarded  as  subordinate  in  authority 
to  that  of  Rome;  though  St.  Ambrose  naturally  ex- 
pressed a  peculiar  respect  for  the  doctrinal  tradition  of 


St.  Damasus  and  the  Triumph  31 

a  church  that  had  been  founded  by  the  great  apostles. 
When  the  Spanish  PriscilHanists  appHed  to  Italy  for 
aid,  they  appealed,  says  Sulpicius  Severus,  "to  the  two 
bishops  who  had  the  highest  authority  at  that  time." 
When  the  great  struggle  with  the  pagan  senators  over 
the  statue  of  Victory  took  place  in  382,  it  was  Ambrose 
who  championed  Christianity,  Damasus  merely  send- 
ing to  him  the  Roman  petition.  But  Damasus  knew 
the  theoretical  strength  of  his  position,  and  knew,  as  a 
rule,  when  to  enforce  it.  In  378,  the  Emperors  severed 
Illyricum  (Greece,  Epirus,  Thessaly,  and  Macedonia) 
from  the  Western  Empire.  Damasus  at  once  contrived 
that  its  bishops  should  look  not  to  the  Eastern  churches 
but  to  himself  for  direction  and  support,  and  from  that 
time  onward  the  Bishop  of  Thessalonica  became  the 
"Vicar"  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome. 

We  must  leave  this  vague  and  imperfect  primacy  in 
the  West,  with  its  secular  foundations,  and  turn  to  the 
more  interesting  and  adventurous  course  of  the  diplo- 
macy of  Damasus  in  the  East.  The  narrow  limits 
within  which  each  of  these  sketches  must  be  confined 
forbid  me  to  attempt  to  depict  the  extraordinary  con- 
fusion of  the  Eastern  Church.  It  must  suffice  to  say, 
in  few  words,  that  the  struggle  against  paganism  was 
almost  lost  in  the  fiery  struggle  against  heresy,  and  that 
the  hand  of  the  Arian  Valens  smote  the  orthodox  as 
violently  and  persistently  as  the  hand  of  any  pagan 
emperor  had  done.  The  various  refinements  of  the 
Arian  heresy,  the  lingering  traces  of  old  heresies,  and  the 
vigorous  beginnings  of  new  heresies,  rent  each  church 
into  factions  as  violent  as  those  of  Rome,  and  made  each 
important  See  the  theatre  of  a  truculent  rivalry.  Con- 
stantinople, or  New  Rome  as  it  loved  to  call  itself,  was 
the  natural  centre  of  the  Eastern  religious  world,  but  it 


32      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

was  overshadowed  by  the  Arian  court  and  its  growing 
pretensions  were  watched  by  the  apostoHc  churches  of 
Antioch  and  Alexandria  almost  as  jealously  as  by  Old 
Rome.  The  triumph  over  paganism  had,  before  it  was 
half  completed,  given  place  to  a  dark  and  sanguinary 
confusion,  from  the  shores  of  the  Euxine  to  the  sands  of 
the  Thebaid. 

In  371  St.  Basil  appealed  to  Damasus  for  assistance. 
He  sent  the  deacon  Dorotheus  with  a  letter'  asking  the 
ItaHans  to  send  to  the  East  visitors  who  might  report 
to  them  the  condition  of  the  churches.  Damasus,  not 
flattered  by  the  lowliness  of  the  embassy  or  by  the 
smallness  of  the  request,  and  still  much  occupied  in 
the  West,  merely  sent  his  deacon  Sabinus.  To  a 
further  impassioned  appeal  from  Basil  he  gave  no  clearer 
promise  of  aid,  and  Basil  indignantly  observed  that  it 
was  useless  to  appeal  to  "a  proud  and  haughty  man  who 
sits  on  a  lofty  throne  and  cannot  hear  those  who  tell 
him  the  truth  on  the  ground  below."  ^  Basil  made 
further  futile  appeals  to  the  West,  though  not  to  Dam- 
asus, and  at  length,  in  381,  the  Eastern  bishops  met  in 
the  Council  of  Constantinople,  discussed  their  own 
affairs,  and,  in  a  famous  canon,  awarded  the  See  of 
Constantinople  a  primacy  in  the  East.  Shortly  after- 
wards a  synod  was  held  in  Italy,  under  Ambrose,  and 
it  sent  to  the  Emperor  Theodosius  a  letter  in  which  the 
concern  of  the  Italians  was  plainly  expressed.^  The 
bishops  ask  Theodosius  to  assist  in  convoking  an 
Ecumenical  Council  at  Rome,  and  say  that  "it  seems 
not  unworthy  that  they  [the  Eastern  bishops]  should 

'  Ep.,  Ixx. 

'Ep.,  ccxv.;  see  also  Ep.,  ccxxxix.  and  cclxvi.,  for  violent  language. 
All  the  letters  of  the  Popes,  up  to  Innocent  III.,  arc  in  this  work 
quoted  from  the  Migne  edition. 

3  Mansi,  iii.,  631. 


St  Damasus  and  the  Triumph  33 

submit  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome  and  the  other  Itahan 
bishops " ;  though  they  "do  not  claim  any  prerogative  of 
judgment. "  It  is  interesting  to  note  at  this  stage  how 
the  Bishop  of  Rome  does  not  yet  stand  apart  from  the 
other  Itahan  bishops  or  claim  jurisdiction  over  the  East. 
In  a  letter  written  by  Damasus  somewhere  about  this 
time  to  certain  oriental  bishops,  there  is  question  of 
"reverence  for  the  Apostolic  See"  and  of  the  foundation 
of  that  See  by  Peter,  but  such  language  is  rare  and  pre- 
mature, and  is  not  implausibly  ascribed  to  St.  Jerome, 
who  was  then  at  Rome.  ^  To  the  Eastern  emperor  and 
to  the  Eastern  patriarchs  it  is  not  addressed. 

Theodosius  ignored  the  request,  and  sanctioned  the 
holding  of  another  Council  at  Constantinople.  The 
Westerns  had,  in  the  meantime,  announced  an  Ecu- 
menical Council  at  Rome  for  the  summer  of  382,  and 
invited  their  Eastern  brethren.  From  one  cause  or 
other,  the  proceedings  at  Rome  were  delayed,  and, 
while  the  Italians  still  anxiously  awaited  the  response 
to  their  invitation,  a  letter  came  with  the  message  that 
the  Eastern  bishops  had  settled  the  questions  in  dispute, 
and  they  regretted  that  they  had  not  "the  wings  of  a 
dove"  in  order  that  they  might  fly  from  "the  great  city 
of  Constantinople"  to  "the  great  city  of  Rome."  The 
letter  is  a  model  of  polite  and  exquisite  irony.  ^  The 
statesmanship  of  Damasus  had  hopelessly  miscarried, 
and  the  Eastern  and  Western  branches  of  Christendom 
were  farther  than  ever  from  uniting  under  his  presidency. 

A  more  intimate  aspect  of  the  character  of  Damasus  is 
disclosed  when  we  consider  the  condition  of  the  Roman 
clergy  during  his  Pontificate.  It  almost  suffices  to 
recall  that  an  imperial  rescript  of  the  year  370  forbade 

»  The  letter  is  in  Theodoret,  Ecclesiastical  History,  v.,  lo. 
'  Theodoret,  v.,  9. 
3 


34      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

priests  and  monks  to  visit  the  houses  of  widows  and 
orphans,  and  declared  that  legacies  to  them  were  in- 
valid. St.  Jerome  himself  deplores  that  there  were 
solid  reasons  for  thus  depriving  the  clergy  of  a  privilege 
which  every  gladiator  enjoyed,  and  that  the  law  was 
shamefully  frustrated  by  donations,'  Indeed,  in  372, 
the  law  was  extended  to  nuns  and  bishops,  and  for 
nearly  a  hundred  years  the  Roman  clergy  bore  the 
stigma  which  was  implied  by  such  a  prohibition. 

Jerome's  letters  ruthlessly  depict  the  condition  of  the 
Roman  community.  Fresh  from  his  austerities  in  the 
desert  of  Chalcidia,  the  impulsive  monk  was  as  ready 
to  denounce  vice  as  to  encourage  virtue,  and  evidences 
of  singular  laxity  mingle  with  heroic  virtue  in  his  vivid 
pages.  On  the  one  hand  he  directed,  in  the  sobered 
palace  of  Marcella  on  the  Aventine,  a  group  of  noble 
dames  in  the  practice  of  the  most  rigorous  piety  and 
the  cultivation  of  sacred  letters.  The  populace  even 
threatened  to  fling  him  into  the  river,  when  the  lovely 
and  high-born  Blesilla  terminated  her  austerities  by  a 
premature  death,  and  even  Christian  writers  fiercely 
contested  this  introduction  into  Rome  of  the  ideals  of 
the  Egyptian  desert.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Jerome's 
directions  to  his  pupils  incidentally  betray  that,  beyond 
his  little  school  of  virtue  and  learning,  he  saw  nothing 
but  sin  and  worldliness.  In  plain  and  crude  speech  he 
warns  his  pupils  to  shun  their  Christian  neighbours 
and  distrust  the  priests.  Sombre  as  are  many  of  the 
letters  which  Seneca  wrote  in  the  days  of  Nero,  not  one 
of  them  can  compare  with  Jerome's  lengthy  letter  to  the 
gentle  maiden  Eustochium.^  He  fills  her  virgin  mind 
with  a  comprehensive  picture  of  frailty  and  frivolity, 
and  tells  her  that  she  may  regard,  not  as  a  Christian, 

'  Ep.  lii.  =■  Ep.,  xxii. 


St.  Damasus  and  the  Triumph  35 

but  as  a  Manichaean,  any  austere-looking  woman  whom 
she  may  meet  on  the  streets  of  Rome.  He  denounces 
"the  new  genus  of  concubines,"  the  "spiritual  brothers 
and  sisters,  "  who  share  the  same  house,  even  the  same 
bed,  and,  if  you  protest,  complain  that  you  are  evil- 
minded.  Eustochium  is  to  avoid  gatherings  of  Chris- 
tian women,  and  must  never  be  alone  with  these  clerics, 
who,  exquisitely  dressed,  their  hair  curled  and  oiled, 
their  fingers  glittering  with  rings,  spend  the  livelong 
day  wheedling  presents  out  of  their  wealthy  admirers. 
I  omit  the  graver  details  given  in  this  and  other  letters 
of  the  outraged  monk. 

The  impartial  historian  cannot  regard  with  reserve 
the  criticisms  which  Ammianus  passed  on  his  pagan 
fellows  and  then  literally  accept  Jerome's  more  severe 
strictures  on  his  fellow-Christians.  There  is  exagger- 
ation on  both  sides.  Yet  no  one  now  questions  that 
the  Christian  community  at  Rome,  lay  and  clerical, 
had  in  the  days  of  Damasus  fallen  far  below  its  ideals, 
and  it  is  not  pleasant  that  we  find  little  or  no  trace  of 
an  episcopal  struggle  against  this  corruption.  It  is 
sometimes  said  that  the  rescript  which  prevented 
priests  from  inheriting  was  passed  at  the  request  of  the 
Pope.  For  this  statement  there  is  no  historical  ground 
whatever,  and  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  improbable.  It 
is  clear  that  prosperity  had  lowered  the  character  of  the 
Church,  from  its  bishop  down  to  its  grave-diggers;  and 
the  laments  of  St.  Ambrose  at  Milan,  of  St.  Chrysostom 
at  Antioch  and  Constantinople,  and  of  St.  Augustine 
in  Africa,  indicate  a  general  relaxation.  The  Roman 
world  must  pass  through  another  severe  and  search- 
ing trial  before  men  like  Leo  I.  and  Gregory  I.  arise 
in  it. 

This  conception  of  Damasus  as  a  courtly  and  lenient 


36      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

prelate  is  not  materially  modified  when  we  regard  his 
more  strictly  religious  work.  He  restored  the  Church  of 
St.  Lawrence,  in  which  he  and  his  father  had  served:  he 
built  a  tiny  basilica — little  more  than  a  princely  tomb  for 
himself,  Marucchi  believes — on  the  Via  Ardeatina:  he 
erected  a  new  baptistery  at  St.  Peter's.  These  are  not  ex- 
ceptionally impressive  works  of  piety  in  so  prosperous  an 
age. 

Damasus  was  an  artist:  not — if  we  judge  him  by  his 
Epigrams — a  man  of  much  inspiration,  but  one  who 
perceived  the  value  of  art  in  the  service  of  religion. 
Jerome  tells  us  that  he  wrote  in  prose  and  verse  on  the 
beauty  of  virginity,  but  we  know  his  very  modest 
poetical  talent  only  from  the  surviving  fifty  or  sixty 
inscriptions  with  which  he  adorned  the  graves  of  the 
martyrs  or  the  chapels.^  He  had  a  genuine  passion  for 
the  adornment  and  popularization  of  the  Catacombs. 
They  were  already  falling  into  decay,  and  Damasus 
cleared  the  galleries,  made  new  air-shafts,  and  decorated 
the  more  important  chambers  with  marble  slabs  and 
silver  rails.  No  doubt  he  did  this  in  part  with  a 
view  to  attracting  the  pagans,  but  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  he  had  a  strong  personal  sentiment  for  the 
work. 

With  the  assistance  of  Jerome,  he  also  endeavoured  to 
improve  the  literary  standard  of  the  Church.  Jerome 
revised  the  "Old  Italian"  translation  of  the  Bible;  and 
it  seems  probable  that  the  canon  of  the  Scriptures  which 
has  until  recently  been  regarded  as  part  of  a  "Gelasian 
Decree"  was  composed  by  Jerome,  under  the  authority 
of  Damasus,  and  promulgated  by  a  Roman  synod. 
The  canon  can  hardly  be  due  to  the  pen  which  wrote 
the  rambling  and  uncultivated  list  of  books  which  fol- 

I  The  best  collection  is  Ihm's  Damasi  Epigrammata  (1895). 


St.  Damasus  and  the  Triumph  zi 

lows  it;  probably  a  later  hand  united  the  two  and 
ascribed  them  to  Gelasius.^ 

The  eighteen  years'  Pontificate  of  Damasus  came  to  a 
close  in  384.  He  is  not  in  the  line  of  heroic  Popes.  He 
was,  at  his  elevation,  in  his  seventh  decade  of  life  and  his 
remaining  energy  was  largely  spent  in  struggling  against 
the  disastrous  consequences  of  his  election.  He  suc- 
ceeded rather  by  geniality  of  temper  and  the  services  of 
others  than  by  strong  personal  exertion.  But  he  was 
lucky  in  his  opportunities.  He  had  control  of  the  new 
wealth  of  the  Papacy,  and  the  Emperors  with  whom  he 
had  to  deal  were  the  indifferent  or  undiscerning  Valen- 
tinian  and  the  pious  and  youthful  Gratian.  Hence  he 
added  materially  to  the  foundations  of  the  medieval 
Papacy.  One  might  almost  venture  to  say  that  the 
dogmatic  Roman  conception  of  a  primacy  inherited  from 
Peter  dates  from  the  scriptural  discussions  of  Damasus 
and  Jerome.  They  were  not  the  authors  of  that  concep- 
tion, but  it  would  henceforward  form  the  essential  part 
of  the  Papal  attitude. 

^  There  is  a  third  part  of  this  "  Gelasian  Decree,"  which  assigns  to  the 
Papacy  an  absolute  primacy  derived  from  Peter.  It  is  improbable  that 
this  was  due  to  Damasus.  A  letter  hitherto  ascribed  to  Pope  Sirianus 
{Ep.,  X.  in  Migne)  has  lately  been  claimed  for  Damasus  (Babut,  La 
plus  ancienne  decretale,  1904),  but  there  is  not  enough  evidence  to  date 
it.  It  is  a  series  of  directions,  better  known  as  Canons  of  the  Romans  to 
the  Bishops  of  Gaul,  on  the  subject  of  clerical  celibacy,  fallen  virgins, 
etc 


CHAPTER  III 

LEO  THE  GREAT,  THE  LAST  POPE  OF  IMPERIAL  ROME 

DURING  the  half -century  which  followed  the  death 
of  Damasus  occurred  two  of  the  decisive  events 
in  the  transformation  of  the  Roman  Empire  into  Chris- 
tian Europe.  Paganism  was  destroyed,  and  the  Empire 
was  shattered.  Jerome  had,  with  rhetorical  inaccuracy, 
described  the  great  temple  of  Jupiter  as  squaHd  and 
deserted  in  the  days  of  Damasus.  Now  it  was  in  truth 
deserted,  for  the  imperial  seal  was  set  on  its  closed  doors  ; 
and  the  same  seal  guarded  the  door  of  the  temples  of 
Isis  and  Mithra.  The  homeless  gods  had  sheltered  for  a 
time  in  the  schools  and  in  patrician  mansions,  but  these 
also  had  fallen  with  the  Empire.  The  southern  half 
of  Europe  became  a  disordered,  semi-Christian  world, 
over  which  poured  from  the  northern  forests  fresh 
armies  of  barbarians.  The  City  of  Man  was  wrecked; 
and  it  was  not  unnatural  that  the  Papacy  should  aspire 
to  make  its  old  metropolis  the  centre  of  the  new  City  of 
God. 

Two  Popes  of  weak  ability  had  followed  Damasus, 
and  witnessed,  rather  than  accomplished,  the  ruin  of  the 
old  religion.  It  was  Ambrose  who  had  directed  the 
convenient  youth  of  Gratian  and  Valentinian  II.,  and 
had  dislodged  the  pagans  and  other  rivals  at  the  point 
of  the  spear.  Innocent  I.  (402-417)  was  a  greater  man: 
an  upright  priest,  an  able  statesman,  a  zealous  believer 

38 


Leo  the  Great  39 

in  the  divine  right  of  Popes.  Milman  has  finely  drawn 
him  serenely  holding  his  sceptre  at  Rome  while  the 
Emperor  cowered  behind  the  fortifications  at  Ravenna. 
While  Rome  tumbled  in  ruins  about  him,  he  continued 
calmly  to  tell  the  bishops  of  Gaul  and  Spain  and  Italy 
what  the  "Apostolic  See"  directed  them  to  do.  His 
puny  yet  bombastic  successor,  Zosimus,  maintained  the 
solitary  blunder,  without  the  redeeming  personality, 
of  Innocent,  and  might  have  wrecked  the  Papacy  if 
he  had  not  died  within  a  year  or  so.  The  worthier 
Boniface  and  still  worthier  Celestine  restored  Roman 
prestige  in  some  measure,  and,  in  440,  after  the  edifying 
but  undistinguished  Pontificate  of  Sixtus  III.,  Leo  the 
Great  entered  the  chronicle. 

Leo,  a  Roman  of  Tuscan  extraction,  was  the  chief 
deacon  of  the  Roman  Church,  and  corresponded  with 
Cyril  of  Alexandria  on  Eastern  affairs.  It  was  probably 
at  his  instigation  that  the  learned  Cassianus  wrote  his 
treatise  On  the  hicarnation  of  Christ.  In  440,  Leo  was 
sent  by  the  Emperor  to  reconcile  the  generals  Aetius  and 
Albinus,  who  quarrelled  while  the  Empire  perished. 
Sixtus  died  in  his  absence,  and  Leo  was  unanimously 
elected  to  the  Papacy.  Toward  the  close  of  September 
he  returned  to  Rome,  and  glanced  about  the  troubled 
world  which  he  had  now  to  rule. 

The  dogmatic  Papal  conception,  which  we  find  dawn- 
ing in  the  mind  of  Damasus  and  see  very  clear  in  the 
mind  of  Innocent  I.  and  his  successors,  reached  its  full  de- 
velopment, on  the  spiritual  side,  in  the  mind  of  Leo  the 
Great.  This  development  was  inevitable.  There  were 
Eastern,  and  even  some  Western,  bishops  who  main- 
tained, against  Leo,  that  the  prestige  of  the  Roman  See 
was  merely  the  prestige  of  Rome,  but  the  answer  of  the 
Papacy  was  easy  and  effective.     In  the  Gospels  which 


40      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Europe  now  treasured,  Peter  was  the  "rock"  on  which 
the  Church  was  built,  and  to  him  alone  had  been  given 
the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Had  the  Church 
lost  its  foundation  when  Peter  died?  Were  the  keys 
buried  beside  the  bones  of  Peter  in  that  marble  tomb 
at  the  foot  of  the  Vatican?  There  was,  from  the  clerical 
point  of  view,  logic  in  the  Roman  bishop's  claim  to  have 
inherited  the  princedom.  Leo  from  the  first  hour  of  his 
Pontificate  was  sincerely  convinced  of  it.  His  sermons 
are  full  of  it.  To  him  is  committed  "the  care  of  all  the 
Churches":  a  phrase  which  he  bequeaths  to  his  suc- 
cessors. He  is  the  new  type  of  Roman,  blending  the 
ideas  of  Jerome  and  Augustine.  The  wreck  of  the  City 
of  Man  matters  little.  What  matters  is  that  these  Arian 
Goths  and  Vandals  are  trampHng  on  the  City  of  God : 
that  the  churches  of  Gaul  and  Spain  and  Italy  and 
Africa  and  the  East  are  in  disorder,  and  the  successor 
of  Peter  must  restore  their  discipline.  He  is  so  ab- 
sorbed in  his  divine  duty  that  he  does  not  notice  how  the 
circumstances  favour  him.  Every  other  lofty  head  in 
the  Empire  is  bowed,  and  from  the  seething  and  impov- 
erished provinces  hundreds  are  looking  to  the  strong 
man  at  Rome. 

His  early  letters  are  the  letters  of  a  Supreme  Pontiff. 
The  African  bishops,  he  hears,  suffer  dreadful  disorders 
in  their  churches.  Elections  to  church-dignities  are 
bought  and  sold :  even  laymen  and  twice-married  clerics 
become  bishops.  With  serene  indifference  to  the  earlier 
history  of  the  African  Church  and  its  tradition  of  in- 
dependence, he  peremptorily  recalls  the  canons  and 
insists  on  their  observance.'  Fortunately  for  him,  the 
long  struggle  against  the  Donatists  and  the  devastating 
onset  of  the  Vandals  have  enfeebled,  almost  annihilated, 

'  Ep.,  xii. 


Leo  the  Great  41 

the  African  Church,  and  there  is  none  to  question  his 
authority. 

He  hears  that  Anatolius  has  been  made  Bishop  of 
Thessalonica,  and  writes'  to  remind  him  that  he  is  the 
"vicar"  of  the  Roman  bishop,  the  successor  of  Peter, 
"on  the  sohdity  of  which  foundation  the  Church  is 
estabHshed. "  When,  at  a  later  date,  AnatoHus  uses  his 
power  harshly,  he  sternly  rebukes  him.  And  it  is  in- 
teresting to  notice  what  the  discipline  is  on  which  he 
insists  in  this  letter.  ^  Even  subdeacons  shall  not  marry, 
or,  if  they  are  married,  shall  not  know  their  wives.  We 
are  very  far  away  from  Callistus. 

Another  aspect  of  Leo's  character  appears  in  his 
treatment  of  the  Manichsans  at  Rome:  an  interesting 
illustration  of  how  he  kept  the  strength  and  serenity  of 
the  old  Roman  though  lacking  his  culture.  Leo  had 
a  terribly  sombre  idea  of  the  Manichseans.  They 
lingered  in  obscure  corners  of  the  metropolis,  and  met 
stealthily,  just  as  Christians  had  done  two  centuries 
earlier;  and  of  them  were  told,  as  had  been  told  of  the 
obscure  Christians,  dreadful  stories.  Leo  conducted  a 
great  inquisition  in  444,  and  brought  the  Manichasan 
bishop,  with  his  "elect,"  to  a  solemn  judgment  before 
the  clergy  and  nobles  of  Rome.  There,  he  says,^  they 
all  confessed  that  the  violation  of  a  girl  of  ten  years  was 
part  of  their  ritual.  He  called  down  upon  them  the 
secular  arm,  and  crushed  them  in  Rome  and  Italy. 
What  sort  of  a  judicial  process  was  employed  to  elicit 
this  extraordinary  confession — so  utterly  at  variance 
with  all  that  we  know  of  the  ascetic  Manich£eans — we 
are  not  told.  But  we  are  painfully  reminded  of  a  similar 
declaration  of  Augustine  in  his  old  age.^ 

*  Ep.,  vi.  ^  E,p.,  xiv.  3  Sermon  xvi. 

4  See  the  author's  Saint  A  ugustine  and  His  A  ge,  p.  409. 


42      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

In  Gaul,  the  Pope  encountered  one  of  the  last  oppo- 
nents of  Papal  aims  in  the  West.  The  province  was 
completely  demoralized  by  the  triumphant  barbarians 
and  by  the  arrival  of  lax  clergy  from  Africa.  In  a 
letter  of  uncertain  date,'  Leo  gives  us  a  dark  picture  of 
the  state  of  things  in  the  southern  provinces,  and  this  is 
more  than  confirmed  in  the  work  of  the  Marseilles 
priest  Salvianus,  De  Gubernatione  Dei.  Laymen  pose  as 
bishops,  Leo  says:  priests  sleep  with  their  wives,  and 
marry  their  daughters  to  men  who  keep  concubines: 
monks  serve  in  the  army,  or  marry:  and  so  on.  From 
this  disordered  world  men  were  ever  ready  to  appeal  to 
the  authority  of  Rome,  and,  in  445,  a  Bishop  Celidonius 
came  to  complain  of  the  harshness  of  his  metropolitan, 
the  austere  and  saintly  Hilary  of  Aries.  Hilary  fol- 
lowed his  Bishop  to  Rome,  and,  when  Leo  decided 
against  him,  the  saint  made  use,  says  Leo,  ^  of  "language 
which  no  layman  even  should  dare  to  use  and  no  priest 
to  hear,"  and  then  "fled  disgracefully"  from  Rome. 

Again  we  are  in  a  dilemma  between  two  saints,  and 
we  must  weigh  as  best  we  can  the  letters  of  Leo  against 
the  biography  of  Hilary.  It  will  be  found  a  general 
truth  of  early  Papal  history  that  the  man  who  appeals 
to  Rome  is  heard  more  indulgently  than  the  opponent 
who  did  not  appeal.  Hilary,  who  had  deposed  the 
Bishop  in  plain  accordance  with  the  rules,  resented 
Leo's  conduct,  and  scoffed  at  his  supposed  supremacy. 
He  then  apprehended  violence,  and  stealthily  left 
Rome  for  Gaul.  Leo  thereupon — or  after  hearing  new 
charges  against  Hilary — wrote  to  the  bishops  of  Vienne^ 
that  they  were  released  from  obedience  to  Hilary,  who 
was  thenceforward  to  confine  himself  to  Aries.  Whether 
Hilary  ever  submitted  or  no  we  have  no  certain  know- 

'  Ep.,  clxvii.  »  Ep.,  X.,  3.  3  Ep.,  x. 


Leo  the  Great  43 

ledge,  but  the  affair  had  an  important  sequel.  In  the 
same  year  (449),  an  imperial  rescript,'  confessedly 
obtained  by  Leo,  confirmed  the  sentence,  and  added: 

We  lay  down  this  for  ever,  that  neither  the  bishops  of  Gaul 
nor  those  of  any  other  province  shall  attempt  anything 
contrary  to  ancient  usage,  without  the  authority  of  the 
venerable  man,  the  Pope  of  the  Eternal  City. 

Even  in  the  height  of  this  quarrel  other  provinces 
were  not  neglected,  as  a  few  letters  of  the  year  447  amply 
show.  The  letter  to  the  Spanish  Bishop  Turribius 
of  Astorga^  is  notable  as  the  first  explicit  Papal 
approval  of  the  execution  of  a  heretic.  It  is  usual  to 
point  out  that  the  errors  of  Priscillian,  the  heretic  in 
question,  were  believed  to  include  magical  practices 
(then  a  legal  and  social  crime)  as  well  as  Manichasan 
and  Gnostic  tenets.  But  we  must  recognize  one  of  the 
most  terrible  principles  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  some- 
thing far  more  than  social  zeal,  in  the  following  words  of 
Leo: 

Although  ecclesiastical  mildness  shrinks  from  blood-punish- 
ments, yet  it  is  aided  by  the  severe  decrees  of  Christian 
princes,  since  they  who  fear  corporal  suffering  will  have 
recourse  to  spiritual  remedies. 

Here  is  no  reference  to  legal  or  social  crimes,  but  to  an 
error  which  concerns  the  ecclesiastic.  Similar  letters, 
enforcing  discipline  in  the  accents  of  an  undisputed  head 
of  the  Church,  were  sent  to  the  bishops  of  Sicily,^  the 
bishop  of  Beneventum,''  and  the  bishop  of  Aquileia. 
These  quotations  from  the  letters  and  sermons  of  Leo 
will  suffice,  not  only  to  show  the  untiring  energy  and 

•  Ep.,  xi.,  in  Migne.  '  Ep.,  xv. 

3  XVI.  and  xvii.  ^  XIX. 


44      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

lofty  aim  of  the  man,  but  to  convince  us  that  the 
primacy  of  Rome  in  the  West  is  now  won.  West  of 
the  Adriatic,  St.  Hilary  is  the  last  great  rebel  against 
the  Roman  conception.  It  is  true  that  this  spiritual 
supremacy  is  still,  in  part,  reliant  on  "  the  severe  decrees 
of  Christian  princes,"  but  the  imperial  authority  is 
fast  fading  into  nothing,  and  in  another  generation  the 
Papal  autocracy  will  stand  alone.  Leo  was  not  ambi- 
tious. Something  of  the  instinctive  masterliness  of  the 
older  Roman  may  be  detected  in  his  actions,  but  he  was 
a  profoundly  religious  man,  seeking  neither  wealth  nor 
honours  of  earth,  convinced  at  once  that  he  discharged  a 
divine  duty  and  exerted  an  authority  of  the  most  be- 
neficent value  to  that  disordered  Christendom,  The 
calamities  of  Europe  had  changed  the  empty  glories  of 
a  Damasus  into  a  power  second  only  to  that  of  Octavian. 

When  we  turn  to  the  East  we  have  not  only  a  most 
valuable  indication  of  the  evolution  of  Christendom  into 
two  independent  and  hostile  Churches,  but  an  even 
more  interesting  revelation  of  subtle  and  unexpected 
shades  in  the  character  of  Leo.  The  great  Pope,  aided 
by  the  very  calamities  of  the  time,  fastens  his  primacy 
on  Europe;  and,  with  even  mightier  exertions  and  the 
most  tense  use  of  all  his  resources,  he  proves  that  an 
extension  of  that  primacy  to  the  East  is  for  ever 
impossible. 

His  friendly  correspondence  with  Cyril  of  Alexandria 
was  resumed  in  the  year  444,  and,  in  the  adjustment  of 
their  differences,  Leo  made  concessions.  In  the  same 
year,  Cyril  died,  and  his  successor  Dioscorus  was 
addressed  with  the  same  recognition  of  equality. 
There  are  differences  in  points  of  discipline,  but  Leo 
is  content  to  say':    "Since  the  blessed  Peter  was  made 

•  Ep.,  ix. 


Leo  the  Great  45 

chief  of  the  apostles  by  the  Lord,  and  the  Roman 
Church  abides  by  his  instructions,  it  is  impossible  to 
suppose  that  his  holy  disciple  Mark,  who  first  ruled 
the  Church  of  Alexandria,  gave  it  other  regulations." 
Five  years  later,  however,  Leo  received  from  the  East 
an  appeal  against  the  Bishop  of  Constantinople,  and  a 
notable  conflict  began. 

In  the  unending  struggle  in  the  East  over  the  nature 
of  Christ,  the  monks,  a  fierce  and  turbulent  rabble 
living  on  the  fringes  of  the  great  cities,  had  been  the 
most  effective  champions  of  orthodoxy,  and  great  was 
their  excitement  when  the  archimandrite  (or  abbot)  of 
one  of  their  large  monasteries  outside  Constantinople 
was  accused  of  heresy.  The  heresy  is  really  diagnosed 
as  such  by  the  proper  authorities,  but  it  is  not  super- 
fluous for  the  historian  to  observe  that  the  monk 
Eutyches  was  godson  of  the  most  powerful  eunuch  at 
the  court,  and  this  eunuch  was  detested  by  the  virtuous 
Empress  Pulcheria  and  by  Flavian,  the  Bishop  of  Con- 
stantinople. Eutyches  was  condemned  by  a  synod  in 
448,  and  he  appealed  to  Leo.  I  have  observed  that  the 
appealer — especially  from  a  province  where  Roman 
authority  was  disputed — always  had  a  gracious  hearing 
at  the  Lateran.  In  February,  449,  Leo  wrote  to  Flavian  ^ 
to  express  his  surprise  that  he  had  not  sent  a  report  of 
the  proceedings  to  Rome  and  that  he  had  disregarded 
the  appeal  which  the  monk  had  made  from  his  sentence 
to  Rome.  However,  since  appeal  has  been  made  to 
Leo,  "we  want  to  know  the  reasons  of  your  action,  and 
we  desire  a  full  account  to  be  communicated  to  us." 
Flavian's  reply^  curtly  described  the  heresy  and  trusted 
that  Leo  would  see  the  justice  of  the  sentence. 

In  the  early  summer,  the  Emperors  of  East  and  West 

■  Ep.,  xxiii.  2  Ep.,  xxvi. 


46  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
issued  a  joint  summons  to  the  bishops  of  Christendom 
to  assemble  in  Council  at  Ephesus,  and  Leo's  letters 
indicate  a  feverish  activity.  His  chief  work  was  to 
write  a  long  dogmatic  letter*  on  the  nature  of  Christ — 
a  very  able  theological  essay — to  be  read  by  his  Legates 
at  the  Council.  Dioscorus  of  Alexandria  presided  over 
this  imposing  assembly  of  360  bishops  and  representa- 
tive clergy,  in  the  presence  of  two  imperial  commis- 
sioners, the  Papal  Legates,  and  the  patriarchs  of  Antioch 
and  Jerusalem,  yet  it  has  passed  into  Western  ecclesi- 
astical history  imder  the  opprobrious  title,  given  to  it 
by  Leo,^  of  "The  Robbers'  Meeting."  It  is  quite  true 
that  the  sittings  dissolved  in  brawls,  and  monks  and 
soldiers  brandished  their  ominous  weapons  over  the 
heads  of  the  bishops,  but  that  was  not  unprecedented. 
The  main  fact  was  that  Dioscorus  contemptuously  re- 
fused to  hear  the  Roman  Legates,  as  Leo  says,  and  in- 
duced the  Council  to  restore  Eutyches  and  depose 
Flavian,  Deacon  Hilary,  one  of  the  Legates,  fled  in 
terror  of  his  life,  and  unfolded  these  enormities  to  Leo, 
whose  correspondence  now  became  intense  and  indig- 
nant. 

For  a  few  months,  Leo  made  strenuous  efforts  to 
redeem  the  prestige  of  his  See.  We  know,  since  1882, 
that  Flavian  in  turn  appealed  to  Rome,  but  Leo  needed 
no  new  incentive.  He  wrote  repeatedly  to  the  pious 
Pulcheria,  to  Theodosius,  to  his  "vicar"  in  Thessalonica, 
and  to  the  monks,  priests,  and  people  of  Constantinople. 
He  knew  the  situation  well.  Alexandria  had  defied 
Constantinople,  but  the  case  of  Constantinople  was 
weakened  by  the  division  of  court-factions  and  the 
monkish  support  of  Eutyches.     It  seemed  an  admirable 

'  The  "Tome  of  Leo,"  Ep.,  xxviii. 
» Ep.,  xcv. 


Leo  the  Great  47 

occasion  for  Rome  to  adjudicate,  and  Leo  pressed 
Theodosius  and  Pulcheria'  to  summon  an  Ecumenical 
Council  at  Rome.  In  the  thick  of  the  struggle  (Febru- 
ary, 450),  Valentinian  III.  visited  Rome  with  the  court, 
and  Leo,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  besought  the  Empress 
Galla  Placidia  to  work  for  the  Roman  Council.  Galla 
Placidia  knew  no  more  than  the  monks  about  theology, 
and  was  more  concerned  about  her  wayward  daughter 
Honoria,  but  she  urged  Pulcheria  to  ensure  the  holding 
of  the  Council  at  Rome.  Presently  there  came  from 
Constantinople  the  news  that  Theodosius  was  dead, 
Pulcheria  was  mistress  of  the  court,  the  eunuch-god- 
father had  been  executed,  the  monk  exiled,  and  the 
Archbishop  Flavian  restored  to  his  See. 

But  the  more  agreeable  aspect  of  this  situation  was 
soon  darkened  by  a  report  that  the  people  of  Constan- 
tinople had  compelled  Pulcheria  to  contract  a  virginal 
marriage  with  Marcian,  and  the  new  Emperor  had 
summoned  an  Ecumenical  Council  in  the  East.  Leo, 
for  reasons  which  we  may  understand  presently,  now 
made  every  effort  to  prevent  the  holding  of  a  Council,^ 
but  the  Emperor  would  not  endanger  his  position  by 
flouting  the  Eastern  Church,  and,  on  October  8th, 
some  six  hundred  bishops  gathered  at  Chalcedon. 
Four  Legates  represented  Leo,  and  were  awarded  a  kind 
of  presidency  of  the  Council.  Leo's  great  doctrinal 
letter  was  received  with  thunders  of  applause,  and, 
when  it  was  speedily  decided  to  condemn  Dioscorus 
(who  had  gone  the  length  of  excommunicating  Leo), 
it  was  one  of  the  Papal  Legates  who  pronounced  the 
sonorous  sentence.  But  all  knew  that  these  compli- 
ments were  the  prelude  to  a  very  serious  struggle. 

After  the  fourteenth  session,  the  Papal  Legates  and 

'  Ep.  xliii.  and  xlv.  '  Ep.,  Ixxxii.  and  IxxxiiL 


48      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

imperial  commissioners  affected  to  believe  that  the  busi- 
ness of  the  day  was  over.  Later  in  the  day,  however,  a 
fifteenth  session  was  held,  and  the  two  hundred  bishops 
present  framed  the  famous  twenty-eighth  canon  of  the 
Council  of  Chalcedon,     It  runs: 

As  in  all  things  we  follow  the  ordinances  of  the  holy  fathers 
and  know  the  recently  read  canon  of  the  hundred  and  fifty 
bishops  [of  the  Council  of  Constantinople],  so  do  we  decree 
the  same  in  regard  to  the  privileges  of  the  most  holy  Church 
of  Constantinople.  Rightly  have  the  fathers  conceded  to 
the  See  of  Old  Rome  its  privileges  on  account  of  its  character 
as  the  Imperial  City,  and,  moved  by  the  same  considera- 
tions, the  one  hundred  and  fifty  bishops  have  awarded  the 
like  privileges  to  the  most  Holy  See  of  New  Rome.^ 

This  drastic  restriction  of  the  Roman  bishop  to  the 
West,  and  disdainful  assurance  that  the  prestige  of  the 
city  of  Rome  was  the  only  basis  of  his  primacy,  was 
read  in  the  next  session,  and  the  Papal  Legates  were 
gravely  disturbed.  There  can  be  very  little  doubt  that, 
as  Hefele  says,  the  Legates  had  abstained  from  the 
fifteenth  session  because  they  knew  that  this  canon 
would  be  discussed  and  passed.  There  was  no  secrecy 
about  it,  and  there  was  much  in  previous  sessions  that 
led  to  it.  Indeed,  it  is  clear  that  Leo  himself  knew  of 
the  design,  and  this  probably  explains  his  resistance, 
which  has  puzzled  many,  to  the  holding  of  the  Council. 
In  the  heat  of  the  discussion,  the  Roman  Legate,  Boni- 
face, produced  this  instruction  from  Leo:  "  If  any,  taking 
their  stand  on  the  importance  of  their  cities,  should 
endeavour  to  arrogate  anything  to  themselves,  resist 
them  with  all  decision."''     Bishop  Eusebius  of  Dory- 

»  Hefele's  History  of  the  Councils  of  the  Church,  iii.,  411. 
'  Hefele,  iii.,  425. 


Leo  the  Great  49 

laeum  (the  accuser  of  Eutyches)  then  said  that  he  had 
read  the  third  canon  of  Constantinople  to  Leo  at 
Rome  some  time  before  the  Council,  and  that  Leo 
had  assented  to  it.  Leo  afterwards  denied  this,  but  we 
must  assume  that  he  merely  denied  having  consented, 
not  the  reading  of  the  canon  to  him.  It  is  quite  clear 
that  Leo  prepared  his  Legates  for  this  discussion. 

It  implies  no  reflection  whatever  on  the  character  of 
Leo  that  he  should  instruct  his  Legates  diplomatically 
to  obstruct  the  passing  of  a  canon  which  he  regarded  as 
contrary  to  a  divine  ordination.  But  the  next  act  of  his 
Legates  is  more  serious.  Bishop  Paschasinus,  the  chief 
Legate,  produced  and  read,  in  Latin,  the  sixth  canon 
of  the  famous  Council  of  Niceea,  and  the  Greeks  were 
amazed  to  learn,  when  it  was  translated,  that  it  awarded 
the  primacy  to  Rome,  There  is  now  no  doubt  that  this 
was  a  spurious  or  adulterated  canon,  and  the  feelings  of 
the  Greeks,  when  they  consulted  the  genuine  canon,  can 
be  imagined.  The  session  closed  in  a  weak  compromise. 
The  Legates  were  allowed  to  protest  that  the  twenty- 
eighth  canon  was  passed  in  their  absence,  and  was  injuri- 
ous to  the  rights  of  their  Bishop,  "who  presided  over  the 
whole  Church."  The  Greeks  politely  registered  their 
protest,  endorsed  the  canon,  and  proceeded  to  indite 
a  very  Greek  letter  to  the  Roman  Bishop.  They 
express  to  Leo''  their  deep  joy  at  the  successful  congress, 
their  entire  respect  for  "the  voice  of  Peter, "  their  loving 
gratitude  that,  through  his  Legates,  he  had  presided 
over  them  "as  the  head  over  the  members";  but  they 
admit  that  one  of  their  canons  did  not  commend  itself 
to  his  Legates  and  they  trust  that  he  will  at  once  gratify 
their  Emperor  by  endorsing  it!  Christendom  was  di- 
vided into  two  parts. 

'  Ep.,  xcviii. 
4 


50      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

The  sequel  matters  little.  The  Legates  returned  and 
declared  that  the  signatures  to  the  canon  had  been  ex- 
torted (as  Leo  afterwards  wrote) ,  though  this  point  had 
been  raised  in  their  presence  by  the  imperial  commis- 
sioners, and  its  falsity  put  beyond  dispute.  To  Marcian, 
to  Pulcheria,  and  to  the  new  Bishop  of  Constantinople, 
Anatolius,  Leo  wrote  acrid  letters,  denouncing  the 
miserable  vanity  and  ambition  of  Anatolius  and  the 
violation  of  the  (spurious)  canons  of  Nicsea.  Marcian 
curtly  requested  him — almost  ordered  him' — to  confirm 
the  results  of  the  Council  without  delay,  and  Leo 
signed  the  doctrinal  decisions.  There  the  matter  ended. 
Rome  affected  to  treat  the  famous  canon  as  invalid,  and 
the  East  genially  ignored  the  absence  of  Leo's  signa- 
ture.'' 

In  the  midst  of  his  feverish  efforts, to  defeat  this 
Eastern  rebellion,  Leo  was  summoned  to  meet  the 
terrible  King  of  the  LIuns,  and  the  memory  of  his 
triumph,  gathering  volume  from  age  to  age,  has  com- 
pletely obliterated  his  failure  to  dominate  the  Greeks. 
Italy,  painfully  enfeebled  by  the  Goths,  now  saw  "  the 
scourge  of  God"  slowly  descend  its  northern  slopes  and 
prepare  for  a  raid  on  the  south.  Leo  and  a  group  of 
Roman  of!icials  met  Attila  on  the  banks  of  the  IMincio, 
and  the  ferocious  King  and  his  dreaded  Huns  meekly 
turned  their  backs  on  Italy  and  retired  to  the  East. 
Pen  and  brush  and  legend  have  embellished  that  won- 

'  Ep.,  ex. 

'  In  a  letter  which  he  wrote  about  the  time  {Ep.,  ciii.)  to  the  bishops 
of  Gaul,  Leo  tells  them  that  Diosccrus  has  been  condemned,  and  says 
that  he  encloses  a  copy  of  the  sentence.  The  copy  appended  to  the  letter 
is  spurious,  for  it  contains  an  allusion  to  "the  holy  and  most  blessed 
Pope,  head  of  the  universal  Church,  Leo  ...  the  foundation  and  rock 
of  faith."  But  J.  do  not  think  one  can  say  confidently  that  this  is  the 
actual  document  sent  by  Leo. 


Leo  the  Great  51 

derful  deliverance  until  it  has  become  a  mystery  and  a 
miracle,  but  it  was  neither  mystery  nor  miracle  to  the 
men  who  first  made  a  scanty  record  of  it.  Jornandes^ 
following  the  older  historian  Priscus,  says  that  Attila 
was  hesitating  whether  to  advance  on  Rome  or  no  at 
the  moment  when  Leo  and  his  companions  arrived; 
his  officers  were  trying  to  dissuade  him,  and  were  ap- 
pealing to  his  superstition  with  a  reminder  of  the  fate 
of  Alaric  after  he  had  sacked  Rome.  Prosper  merely 
says  in  his  Chronicle  that  Leo  was  well  received,  and 
succeeded.  Idatius,  Bishop  of  Aquse  Flaviae  at  the 
time,  does  not  even  mention  Leo  in  his  Chronicle.  The 
Huns,  he  says,  were  severely  stricken  by  war,  by  famine, 
and  by  some  epidemic,  and,  "being  in  this  plight,  they 
made  peace  with  the  Romans  and  departed."^  But 
Rome  at  the  time  knew  nothing  of  these  fortunate  cir- 
cumstances, and,  in  the  delirious  joy  of  its  deliverance, 
imagined  the  savage  Hun  shrinking  in  awe  before  its 
venerable  Bishop:  kept  on  imagining,  indeed,  until 
some  pious  fancy  of  the  eighth  century  believed  that 
the  holy  apostles  had  appeared  beside  the  Pope. 

When,  a  few  years  later  (455)  a  fresh  invasion  threat- 
ened Rome — when  the  vicious  incompetence  of  the 
court  amid  all  its  desolation  set  afoot  another  feud  and 
brought  the  Vandals  from  Africa — Leo  went  out  once 
more  to  plead  for  the  impoverished  city.  Genseric  was 
not  a  savage;  the  Vandals  are  libelled  by  the  grosser 
implication  we  associate  with  their  name  today.  Yet 
he  altered  not  one  step  of  his  onward  course  at  the 

■  De  Rebus  Geticis,  xlii. 

'  The  Chronicles  of  Prosper  and  Idatius  are  in  Migne,  vol.  li.  Idatius 
adds  that  Attila  was  threatened  (in  his  rear)  by  the  troops  of  Marcian, 
though  we  cannot  trace  such  a  movement  of  the  Eastern  troops.  It  was 
enough  that  Attila  believed  it. 


52      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

petitions  or  the  threats  of  the  venerable  Pontiff.  To 
say  that  he  consented  to  refrain  from  slaying  or  tortur- 
ing those  who  submitted,  and  from  firing  the  city,  is 
merely  to  say  that  Leo  failed  to  wring  any  concession 
from  the  largely  civilized  Vandal.  The  aged  Pontiff 
sadly  returned  with  his  clergy,  and  for  a  whole  fort- 
night had  to  listen  in  the  Lateran  Palace  to  the  shrieks 
of  the  women  who  were  dragged  from  their  homes,  and 
to  receive  accounts  of  the  plundering  of  his  churches. 
The  Church  of  St.  Peter  and,  probably,  the  Lateran 
Church  alone  were  spared.  And  when  the  Vandal 
ships  had  sailed  away  with  their  thousands  of  noble 
captives,  including  the  Empress  Eudoxia,  and  their 
mounds  of  silver,  bronze,  and  marble,  Leo  had  to  melt 
down  the  larger  vessels  of  the  great  basilicas  to  find 
the  necessary  chalices  for  his  priests. 

Ancestral  feelings  must  have  stirred  unconsciously 
in  the  mind  of  Leo  when  he  beheld  this  second  ravage  of 
the  city  of  his  fathers,  but  he  at  once  resumed  his 
Pontifical  rule.  On  his  return  from  the  north  of  Italy, 
he  had  found  occasion  to  act  once  more  in  the  East  as 
if  the  canon  of  the  last  Council  were  forgotten.  Now 
the  monks  of  Palestine  had  asserted  their  unyielding 
zeal,  had  driven  the  patriarch  of  Jerusalem  from  his 
seat,  and  had  won  to  their  cause  the  romantic  Empress 
Eudoxia  (of  the  Eastern  court)  whose  suspected  amours 
had  brought  on  her  a  polite  sentence  of  exile.  Leo  at 
once,  somewhat  superfluously,  called  the  pious  Mar- 
cian's  attention  to  the  ecclesiastical  disorders  in  his 
kingdom,  and,  apparently  at  that  Emperor's  request, 
wrote  paternal  admonitions  to  Eudoxia  and  to  the 
monks.  It  was  gratifying  to  be  able  to  report  presently 
that  the  disorders  were  at  an  end. 

Later  (in  453)  the  monks  of  Cappadocia  gave  trouble; 


Leo  the  Great  53 

and  the  monks  and  other  supporters  of  the  deposed 
Dioscorus  at  Alexandria  entered  upon  a  far  graver 
agitation,  and  murdered  their  new  archbishop.  The 
pious  Marcian,  to  make  matters  worse,  died  (457),  and, 
by  one  of  those  strange  intrigues  which  disgraced  the 
Eastern  court,  Leo  the  Isaurian,  an  astute  peasant, 
mounted  the  golden  throne.  On  this  man  Leo's  diplo- 
matic mixture  of  courtly  language  and  high  sacerdotal 
pretensions  made  little  impression.  In  spite  of  Leo's 
protests'  he  called  another  General  Council,  and  Leo 
had  to  be  content  to  send  Legates  to  inform  the  as- 
sembled bishops  what  is  *'the  rule  of  apostoHc  faith"; 
which  he  again  set  forth  in  a  long  dogmatic  epistle.^ 
To  the  last  year,  Leo  maintained,  serenely  and  un- 
swervingly, his  calm  assumption  of  jurisdiction  over  the 
East.  Whether  he  wrote  to  the  patriarch  of  Anti- 
och,3  or  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  ^  or  the  patri- 
archs of  Jerusalem  and  Alexandria,  he  spoke  as  if  his 
sovereignty  had  never  been  questioned.  "The  care  of 
all  the  churches"  lies  on  his  shoulders.  He  disdains 
diplomacy  and  argument.  His  tone  is  arrogant  and 
dogmatic  in  the  highest  degree,  yet  no  man  can  read 
reflectively  those  long  and  imperious  epistles  and  not 
realize  that  he  spoke,  not  as  the  individual  Leo,  de- 
manding personal  prestige,  but  as  the  successor  of  Peter, 
obeying  a  command  which,  he  sincerely  believed,  Christ 
had  laid  upon  him. 

So  the  Papacy  was  built  up.  Leo  went  his  way  on 
November  10,  461,  and  was  buried,  fitly,  in  the  vesti- 
bule of  St.  Peter's.  He  had  formulated  for  all  time  the 
Papal  conception  that  the  successor  of  Peter  had  the 
care  of  all  the  churches  of  the  world.  A  bishop  shall 
not  buy  his  seat  in  Numidia:  a  rabble  of  monks  shall 

'£;^.,clxii.  »CLXV.  3  CXLIX.  ->  CLXX. 


54      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

not  rebel  in  Syria:  a  prelate  shall  not  harshly  treat  his 
clergy  in  Gaul,  but  the  Bishop  of  Rome  must  see  to  it. 
How  that  gaunt  frame  of  duty  was  perfected  in  the  next 
two  centuries,  and  how  the  prosperity  of  later  times 
hid  the  austere  frame  under  a  garment  of  flesh,  is  the 
next  great  chapter  in  the  evolution  of  the  Roman 
Pontificate. 


CHAPTER   IV 

GREGORY  THE  GREAT,  THE  FIRST  MEDIAEVAL  POPE 

SEVENTEEN  Pontiffs  successively  ruled  in  the 
Lateran  Palace  during  the  hundred  and  thirty 
years  which  separate  the  death  of  Leo  I .  and  the  acces- 
sion of  Gregory  I.  The  first  seven  were  not  unworthy 
to  succeed  Leo,  although  one  of  them,  Anastasius  (496- 
498),  is  unjustly  committed  to  Dante's  hell  for  his 
liberality. ' 

During  their  tenure  of  ofhce  the  Arian  Ostrogoth 
Theodoric  set  up  his  promising  kingdom  in  Italy, 
and  the  stricken  country  partly  recovered.  But  the 
succeeding  Popes  were  smaller-minded  men,  looking 
darkly  on  the  heresy  of  Theodoric  and  longing  to  see 
him  displaced  by  the  Catholic  Eastern  Emperor. 
Their  unfortunate  policy  was  crowned  by  a  betrayal 
of  Rome  to  the  troops  of  Justinian;  and  its  fruit 
was   the   establishment    on    the  throne  of  Peter,  by 

'Another  of  them,  Gelasius  (492-496),  is,  or  was  until  recently,  re- 
garded as  the  author  of  the  first  canon  of  Scriptures  and  the  first  list 
of  prohibited  books.  But  this  so-called  "  Gelasian  Decree  "  does  not 
bear  the  name  of  Gelasius  in  some  of  the  older  manuscripts,  and  is  now 
much  disputed.  Father  Grisar  thinks  that  "  we  may  take  it  as  certain 
that  it  did  not  emanate  from  him  "  {History  of  Rome  and  the  Popes, 
iii.,  236).  The  canon  is  probably  due  to  Damasus  (see  p.  36)  and  the 
rather  loosely  written  list  of  books  which  follows  it  is  ascribed  to  the 
later  age  of  Hormisdas  (514-523).  Gelasius  was  an  able  and  vigorous 
Pope,  and  would  hardly  issue  so  poor  a  decree. 

55 


56      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

the   unscrupulous  Theodora,   of    the    sorriest    adven- 
turer  that    had   yet   defiled    it    (Pope  Vigilius),   the 
reduction  of  Italy  to  the  state  of  a  province    of  the 
corrupt  and  extortionate  East,  and  a  lamentable   de- 
pendence of  the  See  of  Rome  on  the  whim  of  the  Byzan- 
tine autocrat.     Seeing  its  increasing  feebleness,  a  new 
and   fiercer   tribe   of   the   barbarians,    the   Lombards, 
poured  over  Ital}'' ;  and  it  was  a  city  of  ruins,  a  kingdom 
of  desolation,  a  continent  of  anarchy,  which  Gregory 
I.  was,  in  the  year  590,  forced  to  undertake  to  control. 
At  Rome  the  monuments  of  what  was  shudderingly 
called  a  pagan  age  were  falling,  year  by  year,  into  the  soil 
which  would  preserve  them  for  a  more  appreciative  race. 
In  Gregory's  day,  across  the  Tiber  from  the  old  quar- 
ter, there  were  to  be  seen  only  the  mouldering  crowns 
of  the  theatres  and  amphitheatres,  the  grass-girt  ruins 
on  the  Capitol  and  on  the  Palatine,  and  the  charred 
skeletons  of  thousands  of  patrician  mansions  on  the 
more  distant  hills.     Forty  thousand  Romans  now  trem- 
bled where  a  million  had  once  boasted  their  eternal 
empire.     And,  as  one  sees  in  some  fallen  forest,  a  new 
life  was  springing  up  on  the  ruins.     Beside  the  decaying 
Neronian  Circus  rose  the   Basilica  of  St.  Peter's,  to 
which  strange  types  of  pilgrims  made  their  way  under 
the  modest  colonnade  leading  from  the  river.     From 
the  heart  of  the  old  Laterani  Palace  towered  the  great 
BasiHca  of  the  Saviour  (later  of  St.  John)  and  the  man- 
sion of  the  new  rulers  of  the  world.     The  temples  were 
still  closed,  and  tumbling  into  ruins;  for  no  one  yet 
proposed  to  convert  into  churches  those  abodes  of  evil 
spirits,  which  one  passed  hurriedly  at  night.     But  on 
all  sides  churches  had  been  built  out  of  the  fallen  stones, 
and  monks  and  nuns  trod  the  dismantled  fora,  and  new 
processions  filed  along  the  decaying  streets.     If  you 


Gregory  the  Great,  First  Mediaeval  Pope    57 

mounted  the  hills,  you  would  see  the  once  prosperous 
Campagna  a  poisonous  marsh,  sending  death  into  the 
city  every  few  years;  and  you  would  learn  that  such 
was  the  condition  of  much  of  Italy,  where  the  Lom- 
bard now  completed  the  work  of  Goth  and  Greek,  and 
that  from  the  gates  of  Constantinople  to  the  forests 
of  Albion  this  incomprehensible  brood  of  barbarians 
was  treading  under  foot  what  remained  of  Roman 
civilization. 

The  book  of  what  we  call  ancient  history  was  closed : 
the  Middle  Age  was  beginning.  Gregory  was  peculiarly 
adapted  to  impress  the  world  at  this  stage  of  transition. 
His  father,  Gordianus,  had  been  a  wealthy  patrician, 
with  large  estates  in  Sicily  and  a  fine  mansion  on  the 
C^lian  hill.  De  Rossi  would  make  him  a  descendant 
of  the  great  family  of  the  Anicii,  but  the  deduction  is 
strained.  Gregory's  mother  was  a  saint.  He  inher- 
ited vigour  and  administrative  ability,  and  was  reared 
in  the  most  pious  and  most  credulous  spirit  of  the  time. 
He  was  put  to  letters,  and  we  are  told  that  he  excelled 
all  others  in  every  branch  of  culture.  Let  us  say,  from 
his  works,  that — probably  using  the  writings  of  the  Latin 
fathers  as  models — he  learned  to  write  a  Latin  which 
Jerome  would  almost  have  pronounced  barbarous,  but 
which  people  of  the  sixth  century  would  think  excel- 
lent, at  times  elegant.  There  was  very  little  culture 
left  in  Rome  in  Gregory's  days.^    About  the  time  when 

'  Lives  of  Gregory  must  be  read  with  discretion.  The  best  and  most 
ample  source  of  knowledge  is  the  stout  volume  of  his  letters,  but  there 
are  early  biographies  by  Paul  the  Deacon  and  John  the  Deacon.  Paul 
wrote  about  780,  but  his  fairly  sober  sketch — into  which  miracles  have 
been  interpolated— does  not  help  us  much.  John  wrote  about  a  century 
after  this,  and  his  fantastic  and  utterly  undiscriminating  work  is  almost 
useless.  The  best  biography  of  Gregory  is  the  learned  and  generally 
candid  work  of  W.  F.  H.  Dudden  (Gregory  the  Great,  2  vols.,  1905). 


58      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Gregory  came  into  the  world  (540),  Cassiodorus  was 
quitting  it  to  found  a  monastic  community  on  his  estate, 
and  he  had  the  happy  idea  of  rescuing  some  elements  of 
Roman  culture  from  the  deluge ;  though  to  him  culture 
meant  Donatus  and  Martianus  Capella  rather  than  the 
classics.  He  succeeded,  too,  in  engaging  the  industry 
of  the  Benedictine  monks,  to  some  extent,  in  copying 
manuscripts.  Culture  was,  happily,  not  suffered  to  die. 
In  Rome,  however,  it  sank  very  low,  and,  for  centuries, 
the  Latin  of  the  Papal  clerks  or  the  Popes  is  generally 
atrocious. 

Gregory,  in  573,  was  Prefect  of  Rome  when  it  was 
beset  by  the  Lombards.  The  desolation  which  ensued 
may  have  finally  convinced  him  that  the  end  of  the 
world  approached:  a  belief  which  occurs  repeatedly  in 
his  letters  and  sermons.  In  the  following  year,  he  sold 
his  possessions,  built  six  monasteries  in  Sicily,  con- 
verted his  Roman  mansion  into  the  monastery  of  St. 
Andrew,  and,  after  giving  the  rest  of  his  fortune  to  the 
poor,  began  a  life  of  stern  asceticism  and  meditation  on 
the  Scriptures.  One  day  he  saw  some  Anglo-Saxon 
slaves  in  the  market,  and  he  set  off  to  convert  these 
fair,  blue-eyed  islanders  to  the  faith.  But  Pope  Bene- 
dict recalled  him  and  found  an  outlet  for  his  great 
energy  in  secretarial  duties  at  the  Lateran. 

Pelagius,  who  in  578  succeeded  Benedict,  sent  Gre- 
gory to  Constantinople,  to  ask  imperial  troops  for  Italy, 
and  he  remained  there,  caring  for  Papal  interests,  for 
about  eight  years.  On  its  pretentious  culture  he  looked 
with  so  much  disdain  that  he  never  learned  Greek,  ^ 
while  the  general  corruption  of  clerics  and  laymen,  and 
the  fierce  dogmatic  discussions,  did  not  modify  his  belief 
in  a  coming  dissolution.     He  maintained  his  monastic 

•£/>.,  ix.,  69. 


Gregory  the  Great,  First  Mediaeval  Pope     59 

life  in  the  Placidia  Palace,  and  began  the  writing  of  that 
portentous  commentary  on  the  book  of  Job  which  is 
known  as  his  Magna  Moralia:  a  monumental  illustra- 
tion of  his  piety,  his  imagination,  and  his  lack  of  culture, 
occupying  about  two  thousand  columns  of  Migne's 
quarto  edition  of  his  works.  He  returned  to  Rome 
about  the  year  586,  without  troops,  but  with  the  im- 
measurably greater  treasure  of  an  arm  of  St.  Andrew 
and  the  head  of  St.  Luke.  Amid  the  plagues  and  fam- 
ines of  Italy,  he  returned  to  his  terrible  fasts  and  dark 
meditations,  and  awaited  the  blast  of  the  archangel's 
trumpet.  An  anecdote,  told  by  himself,  depicts  his 
attitude.  One  of  his  monks  appropriated  a  few  crowns, 
violating  his  vow  of  poverty.  Gregory  refused  the  dy- 
ing man  the  sacraments,  and  buried  him  in  a  dunghill. 
He  completed  his  commentary  on  Job,  and  collected 
endless  stories  of  devils  and  angels,  saints  and  sinners, 
visions  and  miracles ;  until  one  day,  in  590,  the  Romans 
broke  into  the  austere  monastery  with  the  news  that 
Pelagius  was  dead  and  Gregory  was  to  be  his  successor. 
He  fled  from  Rome  in  horror,  but  he  was  the  ablest 
man  in  Italy,  and  all  united  to  make  him  Pope. 

If  these  things  do  not  suffice  to  show  that  Gregory 
was  the  first  mediasval  Pope,  read  his  Dialogues,  com- 
pleted a  few  years  later;  no  theologian  in  the  world  to- 
day would  accept  that  phantasmagoria  of  devils  and 
angels  and  miracles.  It  is  a  precious  monument  of 
Gregory's  world:  the  early  medieval  world.  There 
is  the  same  morbid,  brooding  imagination  in  his  com- 
mentary on  the  prophecies  of  Ezekiel,  which  he  found 
congenial;  and  in  many  passages  of  the  forty  sermons 
in  which,  disdaining  flowers  of  rhetoric  and  rules  of 
grammar,  he  tells  his  people  the  deep-felt,  awful  truths 
of  his  creed. 


6o      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Characteristic  also  is  the  incident  which  occurred  dur- 
ing his  temporary  guidance  of  the  Church — while  he 
awaited  an  answer  to  the  letter  in  which  he  had  begged 
the  Emperor  to  release  him.  A  fearful  epidemic  raged 
at  Rome.  Without  a  glance  at  the  marshes  beyond, 
from  which  it  came,  Gregory  ordered  processions  of  all 
the  faithful,  storming  the  heavens  with  hymns  and 
litanies.  The  figure  over  the  old  tomb  of  Hadrian  (or 
the  Castle  of  Sant'  Angelo)  at  Rome  tells  all  time  how 
an  angel  appeared  in  the  skies  on  that  occasion,  and 
the  pestilence  ceased.  But  the  writers  who  are  nearest 
to  the  time  tell  us  that  eighty  of  the  processionists 
fell  dead  on  the  streets  in  an  hour,  and  the  pestilence 
went  its  slow  course. 

Yet  when  we  turn  from  these  other-worldly  medita- 
tions and  other-worldly  plans  to  the  eight  hundred  and 
fifty  letters  of  the  great  Pope,  we  seem  to  find  an  entirely 
different  man.  We  seem  to  go  back  some  centuries, 
along  that  precarious  line  of  the  Anicii,  and  confront 
one  of  the  abler  of  the  old  patricians.  Instead  of 
credulity,  we  find  a  business  capacity  which,  in  spite  of 
the  appalling  means  of  communication,  organizes  and 
controls,  down  to  minute  details,  an  estate  which  is 
worth  millions  sterling  and  is  scattered  over  half  a 
continent.  Instead  of  self-effacement,  we  find  a  man 
who  talks  to  archbishops  and  governors  of  provinces 
as  if  they  were  acolytes  of  his  Church,  and,  at  least  on 
one  occasion,  tells  the  Eastern  autocrat,  before  whom 
courtiers  shade  their  eyes,  that  he  will  not  obey  him. 
Instead  of  holy  simplicity,  we  find  a  diplomacy  which 
treats  with  hostile  kings  in  defiance  of  the  civil  govern- 
ment, showers  pretty  compliments  on  the  fiery  Brun- 
ichildis  or  the  brutal  Phocas,  and  spends  years  in 
combating  the  pretensions  of  Constantinople.     Instead 


Gregory  the  Great,  First  Mediaeval  Pope    6i 

of  angelic  meekness,  we  find  a  warm  resentment  of 
vilification,  an  occasional  flash  of  temper  which  cows  his 
opponent,  a  sense  of  dignity  which  rebukes  his  steward 
for  sending  him  "a.  sorry  nag"  or  a  "good  ass"  to  ride 
on.  We  have,  in  short,  a  man  whose  shrewd  light- 
brown  eyes  miss  no  opportunity  for  intervention  in  that 
disorderly  world,  from  Angle-land  to  Jerusalem;  who 
has  in  every  part  of  it  spies  and  informers  in  the  service 
of  virtue  and  religion,  and  who  for  fourteen  years  does 
the  work  of  three  men.  And  all  the  time  he  is  Gregory 
the  monk,  ruining  his  body  by  disdainful  treatment, 
writing  commentaries  on  Ezekiel:  a  medium-sized, 
swarthy  man,  with  large  bald  head  and  straggling  tawny 
beard,  with  thick  red  lips  and  Roman  nose  and  chin, 
racked  by  indigestion  and  then  by  gout — but  a  prodigi- 
ous worker. 

To  compress  his  work  into  a  chapter  is  impossible; 
one  can  only  give  imperfect  summaries  and  a  few  sig- 
nificant details.  He  had  secretaries,  of  course,  and  we 
are  apt  to  forget  that  the  art  of  shorthand  writing, 
which  was  perfectly  developed  by  the  Romans,  had  not 
yet  been  lost  in  the  night  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Yet 
every  letter  has  the  stamp  of  Gregory's  personality,  and 
we  recognize  a  mind  of  wonderful  range  and  power. 

His  episcopal  work  in  Rome  alone  might  have  con- 
tented another  man.  Soon  after  his  election  he  wrote 
a  long  letter  on  the  duties  and  qualifications  of  a  bishop, 
which,  in  the  shape  of  a  treatise  entitled  The  Book 
of  Pastoral  Rule,  inspired  for  centuries  the  better  bishops 
of  Europe.  His  palace  was  monastic  in  its  severity. 
He  discharged  from  his  service,  in  Rome  and  abroad, 
the  hosts  of  laymen  his  predecessors  had  employed, 
and  replaced  them  with  monks  and  clerics :  incidentally 
turning  into  monks  and  clerics  many  men  who  did  not 


62      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

adorn  the  holy  state.  He  said  mass  daily,  and  used  at 
times  to  go  on  horseback  to  some  appointed  chapel 
in  the  city,  where  the  people  gathered  to  hear  his  ser- 
mons on  the  gospels  or  on  Ezekiel.  Every  shade  of 
simony,  every  pretext  for  ordination,  except  religious 
zeal,  he  sternly  suppressed.  When  he  foimd  that  men 
were  made  deacons  for  their  fine  voices,  he  forbade 
deacons  to  sing  any  part  of  the  mass  except  the  Gospel, 
and  he  made  other  changes  in  the  liturgy  and  encouraged 
the  improvement  of  the  chant.  JModem  criticism  does 
not  admit  the  Sacramentary  and  the  Antiphonary  which 
later  ages  ascribed  to  him,  but  he  seems  to  have  given 
such  impulse  to  reform  that  the  perfected  liturgy  and 
chant  of  a  later  date  were  attributed  to  him. ' 

His  motive  in  these  reforms  was  purely  religious; 
those  who  would  persuade  us  that  Gregory  I.  had  some 
regard  for  profane  culture,  at  least  as  ancillary  to  re- 
ligious, forget  his  belief  is  an  approaching  dissolution, 
and  overlook  the  nature  of  profane  culture.  It  was 
indissolubly  connected  with  paganism,  and  Gregory 
would  willingly  have  seen  every  Latin  classic  submerged 
in  the  Tiber;  while  his  disdain  of  Greek  confirmed  the 
already  prevalent  ignorance  which  shut  the  Greek 
classics  out  of  Europe,  to  its  grave  disadvantage,  for 
many  centuries.  Happily,  many  monks  and  bishops 
were  in  this  respect  less  unworldly  than  Gregory,  and 
the  greater  Roman  writers  were  copied  and  preserved. 
Gregory's  attitude  tov/ard  these  men  is  well  known.  He 
hears  that  Bishop  Desiderius  of  Vienne,  a  very  worthy 
prelate,  is  lecturing  on  "grammar"  (Latin  literature), 
and  he  writes  to  tell  Desiderius  that  he  is  filled  with 
"mourning  and  sorrow"  that  a  bishop  should  be  occu- 
pied with  so  "horrible"  {nejandum)  a  pursuit.^     It  has 

'  See  Dudden's  Gregory  the  Great,  i.,  264-276.  ^  Ep.,  vi.,  54. 


Gregory  the  Great,  First  Mediaeval  Pope    63 

been  frivolously  suggested  that  perhaps  Desiderius 
had  been  lecturing  on  the  classics  in  church,  but 
Gregory  is  quite  plain :  the  reading  of  the  pagan  writers 
is  an  unfit  occupation  even  for  "a  religious  layman. " ^ 
In  the  preface  to  his  Alagna  AI or  alia  he  scorns  "the 
rules  of  Donatus" ;  and  so  sore  a  memory  of  his  attitude 
remained  among  the  friends  of  Latin  letters  that  Chris- 
tian tradition  charged  him  with  having  burned  the 
libraries  of  the  Capitol  and  of  the  Palatine  and  with 
having  mutilated  the  statues  and  monuments  of  older 
Rome.^ 

The  work  of  Gregory  in  Rome,  however,  was  not 
confined  to  liturgy  and  discipline.  The  tradition  of 
parasitism  at  Rome  was  not  dead,  and,  as  there  was 
now  no  Prcejediis  Annonce  to  distribute  corn  to  the 
citizens,  it  fell  to  the  Church  to  feed  them;  and  the 
Romans  were  now  augmented  by  destitute  refugees  from 
all  parts.  Gregory  had  to  find  food  and  clothing  for 
masses  of  people,  to  make  constant  grants  to  their 
churches  and  to  the  monasteries,  to  meet  a  periodical 
famine,  and  to  render  what  miserable  aid  the  ignorance 
of  the  time  afforded  during  the  periodical  pestilence. 
Occasionally  he  had  even  to  control  the  movements  of 
troops  and  the  dispatch  of  supplies;  at  least,  in  his 
impatience  of  the  apparent  helplessness  of  the  imperial 
government  and  his  determination  to  hold   Catholic 

'  Dr.  H.  A.  Mann  (The  Lives  of  the  Popes  in  the  Early  Middle 
Ages,  1902,  etc.)  would  show  that  Gregory  had  a  regard  for  culture 
by  quoting  much  praise  of  secular  learning  from  the  Commentary  on 
the  First  Book  of  Kings.  This  is  not  a  work  of  Gregory  at  all.  Even 
the  Benedictine  editors  of  the  Migne  edition  claim  only  that  it  was 
written  by  an  admirer  who  took  notes  of  Gregory's  homilies,  and  they 
admit  that  it  frequently  departs  from  Gregory's  ideas. 

^  See  John  of  Salisbury,  Polycraticus,  ii.,  26.  It  is  difficult  to  con- 
ceive that  so  unflattering  a  tradition  was  entirely  an  invention. 


64      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
towns  against  the  Lombards,  he  undertook  these  and 
other  secular  functions. 

The  control  of  the  vast  Papal  income  and  expendi- 
ture might  alone  have  sufficed  to  employ  a  vigorous 
man.  In  Sicily,  there  were  immense  estates  belonging 
to  the  Papacy,  and  other  "patrimonies,"  as  they  were 
called,  were  scattered  over  Italy  and  the  islands,  or  lay 
as  far  away  as  Gaul,  Dalmatia,  Africa,  and  the  East. 
Clerical  agents  usually  managed  these  estates,  but  we 
find  Gregory  talking  about  their  mules  and  mares  and 
cornfields,  and  the  wages  and  grievances  of  their  slaves 
and  serfs,  as  familiarly  as  if  he  had  visited  each  of  them. 
It  has  been  estimated,  rather  precariously,  that  the 
Papacy  already  owned  from  1400  to  1800  square  miles 
of  land,  and  drew  from  it  an  annual  income  of  from 
£300,000  to  £400,000.  Not  a  domestic  squabble  seems 
to  have  happened  in  this  enormous  field  but  Gregory 
intervened,  and  his  rigid  sense  of  justice  and  general 
shrewdness  of  decision  command  respect.  Then,  there 
was  the  equally  heavy  task  of  distributing  the  income, 
for  the  episcopal  establishment  cost  little,  and  nothing 
was  hoarded.  In  sums  of  ten,  twenty,  or  fifty  gold 
pieces,  in  bales  of  clothing  and  galleys  of  corn,  in  altar- 
vessels  and  the  ransom  of  captives,  the  stream  per- 
colated yearly  throughout  the  Christian  world,  as  far 
as  the  villages  of  Syria.  Monks  and  nuns  were  espe- 
cially favoured. 

Within  a  few  years,  there  spread  over  the  world  so 
great  a  repute  of  Gregory's  charity  and  equity  that 
petitions  rained  upon  Rome.  Here  a  guild  of  soap- 
boilers asks  his  intervention  in  some  dispute:  there  a 
woman  who,  in  a  fit  of  temper  at  the  supposed  in- 
fidelity of  her  husband,  has  rushed  to  a  nunnery  and 
now  wants  to  return  home,  asks  his  indulgence,  and 


Gregory  the  Great,  First  Mediaeval  Pope    65 

receives  it.  From  all  sides  are  cries  of  oppression, 
simony,  or  other  scandal,  and  Gregory  is  aroused. 
Jews  appeal  to  him  frequently  against  the  injustice  of 
their  Christian  neighbours,  and  they  invariably  get  such 
justice  as  the  law  allows.  The  Zealots  who  have  seized 
their  synagogues  (if  of  long  standing — they  were  for- 
bidden by  law  to  build  new  ones)  must  restore  them, 
or  pay  for  them';  impatient  priests  who  would  coerce 
them  into  "believing"  are  rebuked.  There  is  only  one 
weakness — a  not  unamiable  weakness — in  his  treat- 
ment of  the  Jews.  Those  who  abandon  their  creed  are 
to  have  their  rents  reduced:  to  encourage  the  others, 
he  says  cheerfully.^  For  the  pagans,  however,  he  has 
no  mercy,  as  we  shall  see.  He  sanctions  compulsion 
and  persecution  with  mediaeval  frankness.  It  should 
be  noted,  too,  that,  while  he  approved  the  manumis- 
sion of  slaves,  he  never  condemned  the  institution  as 
such.  Vast  regiments  of  slaves  worked  the  Papal 
estates,  though  the  ease,  if  not  advantage,  of  converting 
them  into  serfs  must  have  been  apparent.  Still  no 
slave  could  enter  the  clergy — lest,  as  Leo  the  Great  had 
declared,  his  "vileness"  should  "pollute"  the  sacred 
order — and  a  special  probation  was  imposed  on  slaves 
if  they  wished  to  enter  monasteries :  a  wise  regulation 
this,  for  many  thought  it  an  easy  way  to  freedom. 
Still  no  slave  could  contract  marriage  with  a  free  Chris- 
tian, as  Gregory  expressly  reaffirms.  ^ 

These  details  of  his  work  will,  however,  be  more  ap- 
parent if  we  pass  from  Rome  to  the  provinces  which 
he  controlled,  and  observe  the  success  or  failure  of  his 
intervention.  It  will  at  once  be  understood  that  his 
intervention  almost  invariably  means  that  there  is  an 
abuse  to  correct,  and,  therefore,  the  world  which  we 

'  Ep.,  ix.,  6,  etc.  ^  Ep.,  ii.,  32.  3  Ep.,  vii.,  i. 

S 


66      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

find  reflected  in  Gregory's  letters  is  fearfully  corrupt. 
The  restless  movements  and  destructive  ways  of  the 
barbarians  had  almost  obliterated  the  older  culture, 
and  no  new  system  either  of  education  or  polity  had 
yet  been  devised.  The  influence  of  the  East  had  been 
just  as  pernicious.  The  venality  and  corruption  of  its 
officers  had  infected  the  higher  clergy,  and  simony  pre- 
vailed from  Gaul  to  Palestine.  Over  and  over  again 
Gregory  writes,  in  just  the  same  words,  to  prelates  of 
widely  separated  countries:  "I  hear  that  no  one  can 
obtain  orders  in  your  province  without  paying  for 
them."  The  clergy  was  thus  tainted  at  its  source. 
Ambitious  laymen  passed,  almost  at  a  bound,  to 
bishoprics,  and  then  maintained  a  luxurious  or  vicious 
life  by  extorting  illegal  fees.  The  people,  who  had 
been  generally  literate  under  the  Romans,  were  now 
wholly  illiterate  and  helpless.  But  Gregory  has  his 
informants  (generally  the  agents  in  charge  of  the  patri- 
monies) everywhere,  and  the  better  clergy  and  the 
oppressed  and  the  disappointed  appeal  to  him;  and  a 
sad  procession  of  vice  and  crime  passes  before  our  eyes 
when  we  read  his  letters.  This  anarchic  world  needed 
a  supreme  court  more  than  ever :  the  Papacy  throve  on 
its  very  disorders. 

Italy  was  demoralized  by  the  settlement  of  the  Arian 
Lombards  over  the  greater  part  of  the  country,  and 
by  their  murderous  raids  in  all  directions.  Parts  which 
remained  Catholic  were  often  so  isolated  from  Rome 
that  a  spirit  of  defiance  was  encouraged,  and  Gregory 
had  grave  trouble.  Milan,  for  instance,  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  Lombards,  but  the  Catholic  clergy  had 
fled  to  Genoa  with  their  archbishop,  and  they  retained 
something  of  the  independence  of  the  Church  of  St. 
Ambrose.     We  see  that  they  must  now  have  their  selec- 


Gregory  the  Great,  First  Mediaeval  Pope    67 

tion  of  a  bishop  approved  by  Gregory,  and  that  the 
Pope  often  quietly  reproves  the  prelate  for  his  indis- 
cretions ;  but  we  find  also  that  when,  on  a  more  serious 
occasion,  Gregory  proposes  to  have  Archbishop  Con- 
stantius  tried  at  Rome,  the  latter  acridly  refuses. 

Ravenna,  the  seat  of  the  Eastern  Exarch,  who  is  gen- 
erally hostile  to  Gregory,  occasions  some  of  his  least 
saintly  letters.  He  hears  that  Archbishop  John  wears 
his  pallium  on  forbidden  occasions,  and  he  reproves 
John  with  an  air  of  unquestioned  authority.^  John 
partly  disputes  the  facts,  and  partly  pleads  special 
privileges  of  Ravenna,  but  Gregory  finds  no  trace  of 
such  privileges  and  orders  him  to  conform.^  Then  he 
hears  that  John  and  the  fine  folk  of  the  court  are  poking 
fun  at  him,  and  his  honest  anger  overflows^:  "Thank 
God  the  Lombards  are  between  me  and  the  city  of 
Ravenna,  or  I  might  have  had  to  show  how  strict  I  can 
be. "  John  dies,  and  we  see  that  the  clergy  of  Ravenna 
must  submit  the  names  of  two  candidates  to  Gregory. 
He  rejects  the  Exarch's  man,  and  chooses  an  old  fellow- 
monk  and  friend,  Marinianus.  But  the  new  Archbishop 
is  forced  to  maintain  the  defence  of  the  supposed  privi- 
leges of  Ravenna,  and  the  dispute  seems  to  reach  no 
conclusion  during  the  life  of  Gregory. 

In  the  isolated  peninsula  of  Istria,  the  spirit  of 
independence  has  gone  the  length  of  flat  defiance,  or 
schism,  because  the  Papacy  has  acquiesced  in  the 
endorsement  by  the  Eastern  bishops  of  the  Three 
Chapters:  three  chapters  of  a  certain  decree  of  Justin- 
ian. The  schism  is  of  long  standing,  and  when  Gregory 
is  made  bishop  he  sends  a  troop  of  soldiers  to  the 
patriarch  of  Aquileia,  commanding  that  prelate  and 
his    chief    supporters    to    appear   at    Rome   forthwith, 

'iir.,  56.  'V.,  II.  3  v.,  15. 


68     Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

"according  to  the  orders  of  the  most  Christian  and  most 
Serene  lord  of  all."  The  use  of  the  Emperor's  name 
seems  to  have  been,  to  put  it  politely,  not  strictly 
accurate,  for  when  Bishop  Severus  appealed  to  Maurice, 
the  Emperor  curtly  ordered  Gregory  to  desist.  We 
have  another  indication  of  the  mediaeval  aspect  of 
Gregory's  ideas  when,  in  the  following  year,  he  refused 
to  contribute  to  the  relief-fund  for  the  victims  of  a  great 
fire  at  Aquileia.  His  monies  were  ' '  not  for  the  enemies 
of  the  Church, "  he  said.  He  went  on  to  weaken  the 
schism  by  other  means,  partly  by  bribes,  and  when 
Maurice  died  in  602  and  a  friendly  Exarch  was  ap- 
pointed, he  at  once  urged  physical  force.'  "The  de- 
fence of  the  soul  is  more  precious  in  the  sight  of  God 
than  the  defence  of  the  body,"  he  enacted.  He  was 
legislating  for  the  Middle  Ages. 

His  relations  with  the  Lombards  and  the  civil  power 
reveal  another  side  of  his  character.  Small  Catholic 
towns,  and  even  Rome,  were  constantly  threatened  by 
the  Lombards,  yet  Constantinople  was  unable  to  send 
troops,  and  the  Exarch  remained  inactive  behind  the 
marshes  and  walls  of  Ravenna.  Gregory  indignantly 
turned  soldier  and  diplomatist.  He  appointed  a  mili- 
tary governor  of  Nepi,  and  later  of  Naples;  and  many 
of  his  letters  are  to  military  men,  stirring  them  to  action 
and  telling  of  the  dispatch  of  troops  or  supplies.  In 
592,  the  Lombards  appeared  before  Rome,  and  Gregory 
fell  ill  with  work  and  anxiety.  He  then  purchased  a 
separate  peace  from  the  Lombards^  and  there  was 
great  anger  at  Ravenna  and  Constantinople.  Greg- 
ory's sentiment  was  hardly  one  of  patriotism,  which 
would  not  be  consistent  with  his  philosophy;  he  was 
concerned  for  religion,  as  he  was  bound  to  be  since  the 

'Xni.,33.  ='IL,46;  v.,36. 


Gregory  the  Great,  First  Mediaeval  Pope    69 

Lombards  were  Arians.  On  the  other  hand,  he  ac- 
knowledges that  if  he  makes  a  separate  peace  with  the 
Lombards,  it  will  be  disastrous  for  other  parts  of  the 
Empire  ^ ;  and  it  is  clear  from  the  sequel  that  the  Exarch 
had  a  policy  and  was  not  idly  drifting, 

A  later  legend,  which  some  modern  writers  strangely 
regard  as  credible,^  makes  Gregory  meet  the  Lombard 
king  outside  Rome,  and  strike  a  bargain.  A  bargain 
was  certainly  struck,  but  the  angry  Exarch  issued  from 
Ravenna  with  his  troops  and  cut  his  way  to  Rome, 
where  his  conversation  with  the  Pope  cannot  have  been 
amiable.  The  Lombards  were  back  in  593,  but  were 
either  bribed,  or  found  Rome  too  strong  to  be  taken. 
They  returned  again  in  595.  Gregory  now  wrote  to  a 
friend  in  Ravenna^  that  he  proposed  again  to  purchase 
peace,  and  the  Emperor  Maurice  seems  to  have  written 
him  a  scalding  letter.  From  Gregory's  indignant  reply  ^ 
we  gather  that  Maurice  called  him  ''a  fool, "  and  hinted 
that  he  was  a  liar  and  traitor.  The  government  idea 
evidently  was  that  Gregory  was  a  simple-minded  victim 
of  the  cunning  Lombards,  as  is  very  probable;  but  we 
must  take  account  of  his  sincere  concern  for  religion  and 
his  longing  for  peace.  His  policy  of  bribes  would  have 
been  disastrous.  At  Ravenna,  some  person  posted  on 
the  walls  a  sarcastic  "libel"  about  his  statesmanship, 
and  another  fiery  letter  appears  in  Gregory's  register. 

In  other  parts  of  Italy,  he  had  grave  ecclesiastical 
abuses  to  correct,  and  some  strange  bishops  are  immor- 
talized in  his  letters.  In  599,  he  had  to  issue  a  circular 
letter,  5  forbidding  bishops    to   have   women   in   their 

'  v.,  36. 

"  It  is  first  found  in  the  unreliable  Continuer  of  Prospei''s  Chronicle, 
and  seems  to  be  founded  on  the  meeting  of  Leo  and  Attila.  Neither 
Gregory  nor  Paul,  the  Deacon  speaks  of  a  meeting  with  the  Lombard 
king.  ^V.,  36.  4  v.,  40.  srx.,ii. 


70      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

houses,  and  ordering  priests,  deacons,  and  subdeacons 
to  separate  from  their  wives.  Sicily,  controlled  by  his 
agents,  gave  him  Httle  trouble,  but  his  informers  re- 
ported that  in  Sardinia  and  Corsica  the  clergy  and 
monks  were  very  corrupt,  and  the  pagans,  who  were  nu- 
merous, bribed  the  officials  to  overlook  the  practice  of 
their  cult.  The  metropolitan  at  Cagliari  was  an  intem- 
perate and  avaricious  man,  and  Gregory,  after  repeated 
warnings,  summoned  him  to  Rome ;  but  there  is  a  curious 
mixture  of  indulgence  and  sternness  in  the  Pope's  letters, 
and  Januariiis  did  not  go  to  Rome  or  alter  his  wicked 
ways.  As  to  the  pagans,  Gregory,  at  first,  merely  urged 
the  Archbishop  to  raise  the  rents  and  taxes  of  those 
who  would  not  abandon  the  gods. '  When  this  proved 
insufficient,  he  ordered  physical  persecution.  If  they 
I  were  slaves,  they  were  to  be  punished  with  "blows  and 
tortures";  if  they  were  free  tenants,  they  were  to  be 
imprisoned.  "In  order,"  he  says,  in  entirely  mediaeval 
language,  "that  they  who  disdain  to  hear  the  saving 
j  words  of  health  may  at  least  be  brought  to  the  desired 
'  sanity  of  mind  by  torture  of  the  body.  "* 

With  other  provinces  of  the  old  Empire,  his  corre- 
spondence is  mainly  directed  to  the  correction  of  grave 
abuses.  His  letters  to  Spain  show  that  Papal  authority 
was  fully  recognized  there,  and  it  is  of  interest  to  find 
a  Spanish  bishop  bemoaning,  when  Gregory  urges  that 
only  Hterate  men  shall  be  promoted  to  the  priesthood, 
that  they  are  too  few  in  number.  Africa  virtually 
defied  his  efforts  to  reform  the  Church.  The  province 
had  recovered  a  Httle  under  Byzantine  rule,  but  its 
bishops  and  civic  officials  took  bribes  from  the  Dona- 
tists.^  They  refused  to  persecute  the  schismatics, 
when  Gregory  ordered  them  to  do  so,  and  they  defeated 
'IV..  26.  MX.,  65.  M..84. 


Gregory  the  Great,  First  Mediaeval  Pope    71 

his  attempt  to  break  up  their  system  of  local  primacies.  ^ 
He  was  compelled  to  leave  them  in  their  perverse  ways. 
The  same  condition  of  simony  and  clerical  laxity 
prevailed  generally  throughout  the  Roman-Teutonic 
world,  and  Gregory  could  do  little  more  than  press  for 
the  election  of  good  men  to  vacant  bishoprics. 

The  diplomatic  side  of  his  character  appears  in  his 
relations  with  Gaul,  where  the  fiery  and  wilful  Brun- 
ichildis  was  his  chief  correspondent.^  It  is  true  that 
her  graver  crimes  were  committed  after  Gregory's 
death,  but  he  was  particularly  well  informed,  and  one 
cannot  admire  his  references  to  her  "devout  mind"  or 
appreciate  his  belief  that  she  was  "filled  with  the  piety 
of  heavenly  grace."  When,  in  599,  she  asked  the 
pallium  for  her  obsequious  Bishop  Syagrius  of  Autun, 
Gregory  granted  it:  on  condition  that  Syagrius  con- 
voked a  synod  for  the  correction  of  abuses  and  that 
Brunichildis  attacked  paganism  more  vigorously.  When, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  learned  and  devout  Bishop 
Desiderius  of  Vienne,  who  was  hated  by  Brunichildis 
for  his  courage  in  rebuking  her,  asked  the  pallium, 
Gregory  found  that  there  was  no  precedent  and  refused. 
It  is  true  that  Brunichildis  was  generous  to  the  clergy 
and,  in  her  way,  pious ;  but  Gregory  must  have  known 
the  real  character  of  the  woman  whose  influence  he 
sought  to  win.  His  sacrifice,  moreover,  was  futile.  A 
few  synods  were  held,  but  there  is  no  trace  of  any 
diminution  of  simony,  drunkenness,  and  vice  among 
the  Prankish  priests  and  monks. 

His  interest  in  the  neighbouring  island  of  Angle- 
land  is  well  known.  He  began,  early  in  his  Pontificate, 
to  buy  Anglo-Saxon  youths  and  train  them  for  mission- 
ary work,  but,  in  596,  he  found  a  speedier  way  to 

'  I;  74-  '  See  Ep.,  vii.,  5,  50,  59  etc. 


-V 


12      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

convert  the  islanders.  The  all-powerful  Ethelbert  was 
married  to  the  Christian  Bertha,  and  Gregory's  friendly 
relations  with  Gaul  opened  the  way  to  his  court.  He 
sent  the  historic  mission  of  monks  under  Augustine,  and, 
in  a  few  years,  had  the  converted  King  transforming  the 
pagan  temples  into  churches  and  driving  his  people 
into  them.  It  was  Gregory  who  planned  the  first 
English  hierarchy. 

The  monks,  who  ought  to  have  been  Gregory's 
firmest  allies  in  the  reform  of  Christendom,  had  already 
become  an  ignorant  and  sensual  body,  sustaining  the 
ideal  of  Benedict  only  in  a  few  isolated  communities, 
and  Gregory's  efforts  to  improve  them  were  not  wholly 
judicious.  He  insisted  that  they  should  not  undertake 
priestly  or  parochial  work,  and  he  forbade  the  bishops 
to  interfere  with  their  temporal  concerns.  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  this  tendency  to  free  them  from 
episcopal  control  made  for  greater  degeneration.  Here 
again,  also,  we  find  a  curious  illustration  of  his  diplo- 
matic liberality.  As  a  rule  he  was  very  severe  with 
apostate  monks,  yet  we  find  him  maintaining  through 
life  a  friendly  correspondence  with  a  renegade  monk  of 
Syracuse.  Venantius  had  returned  to  his  position  of 
wealthy  noble  in  the  world,  and  had  married  a  noble 
dame,  Gregory,  it  is  true,  urged  him  to  return  to  his 
monastery,  but  the  amiability  of  his  language  is  only 
explained  by  the  position  and  influence  of  the  man. 
The  last  phase  of  this  part  of  Gregory's  correspondence 
is  singular.  Venantius  died,  and  left  his  daughters  to 
the  guardianship  of  the  Pope;  and  we  find  Gregory 
assuring  these  children  of  sin  that  he  will  discharge 
**the  debt  we  owe  to  the  goodness  of  your  parents."* 

We  have  already  seen  that  Gregory's  relations  with 

'XI.,  35. 


Gregory  the  Great,  First  Mediaeval  Pope     73 

the  eastern  Emperor  were  painful,  and  another  episode 
must  be  related  before  we  approach  Eastern  affairs 
more  closely.  The  Archbishop  of  Salona,  who  was  one 
of  the  typical  lax  prelates  of  the  age  and  who  had  smiled 
at  Gregory's  admonitions  and  threats,  was  removed  by 
death,  and  the  Pope  endeavoured  to  secure  the  election 
of  the  archdeacon,  a  rigorous  priest  who  had  been  the 
Pope's  chief  informer.  Neither  clergy  nor  laity,  how- 
ever, desired  a  change  in  the  morals  of  the  episcopal 
palace,  and  they  secured  from  Constantinople  an  im- 
perial order  for  the  election  of  their  own  favourite. 
Gregory  alleged  bribery  and  excommunicated  the  new 
archbishop.  When  the  Emperor  ordered  him  to 
desist,  he  flatly  refused,  and  a  compromise  had  to  be 
admitted.  In  another  town  of  the  same  frontier 
province.  Prima  Justiniana,  the  Emperor  proposed 
to  replace  an  invalid  bishop  with  a  more  vigorous  man, 
and  Gregory  refused  to  consent.^ 

A  graver  conflict  had  arisen  in  the  East.  Constanti- 
nople, with  its  million  citizens  and  its  superb  imperial 
palace,  naturally  regarded  its  archbishop  as  too  elevated 
to  submit  to  Rome,  and  its  ruling  prelate,  John  the  , 
Faster, — a  priest  who  rivalled  Gregory  in  virtue  and 
austerity, — assumed  the  title  of  "Ecumenical  Bishop." 
Gregory  protested,  but  the  Emperor  Maurice,  with  his 
customary  bluntness,  ordered  the  Pope  to  be  silent. 
A  few  years  later,  however,  some  aggrieved  Eastern 
priests  appealed  to  Rome,  and  Gregory  wrote,  in  en- 
tirely Papal  language,  to  ask  John  for  a  report  on  their 
case.  When  John  lightly,  or  disdainfully,  answered  that 
he  knew  nothing  about  it,  the  Pope  lost  his  temper. 
He  told  his  ascetic  brother  that  it  would  be  a  much  less 
evil  to  eat  meat  than  to  tell  lies :  that  he  had  better  get 

•  XL,  47. 


74      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

rid  of  that  licentious  young  secretary  of  his  and  attend 
to  business:  that  he  must  at  once  take  back  the  ag- 
grieved priests:  and  that,  although  he  seeks  no  quarrel, 
he  will  not  flinch  if  it  is  forced  on  him. '  John  made  a 
malicious  retort,  by  inducing  the  Empress  Constantina 
to  make  a  request  for  relics  which  Gregory  was  bound 
to  refuse. 

The  priests  were  eventually  tried  at  Rome.  Whether 
Gregory's  sentence  was  ever  carried  out  in  the  East,  we 
do  not  know,  but  John  took  the  revenge  of  styling 
himself  "Ecumenical  Bishop"  in  his  correspondence 
with  Gregory,  and  the  Pope  then  tried  to  form  a  league 
with  the  patriarchs  of  the  apostolic  Sees  of  Antioch  and 
Alexandria  against  the  ambitious  John.  In  his  eager- 
ness to  defeat  John,  he  went  very  near  to  sharing  the 
Papacy  with  his  allies.  Peter,  he  said,  had  been  at 
Antioch  before  Rome,  and  Mark  was  a  disciple  of  Peter; 
therefore  the  three  were  in  a  sense  "one  See. "^  He 
added  that  Rome  was  so  far  from  aspiring  to  the  odious 
title  that,  although  it  had  actually  been  offered  to  the 
Popes  by  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  neither  Leo  nor 
any  of  his  successors  had  used  it.^ 

To  John  himself  Gregory  sent  a  withering  rebuke  of 
his  pride.  To  the  Emperor  Maurice  he  described  John 
as  "a  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing,"  a  man  who  claimed  a 
"blasphemous  title"  which  "  ought  to  be  far  from  the 
hearts  of  all  Christians"!  John  may  "stiffen  his  neck 
against  the  Almighty,"  he  says,  but  "he  will  not  bend 

'III.,  53-  ^V.,  43- 

3  It  is  not  true  that  the  Council  offered  the  title  to  Leo  I.  It  occurs 
only  in  petitions  which  two  Eastern  priests  directed  to  the  Pope  and  the 
Council  (Mansi,  vi.,  ioo6  and  1012),  and  the  Council,  as  we  saw,  decreed 
precisely  the  opposite.  The  only  other  place  in  which  we  find  it  in 
some  form  is  the  spurious  Latin  version  of  the  sentence  on  Dioscorus 
to  which  I  referred  on  p.  50. 


Gregory  the  Great,  First  Mediaeval  Pope     75 

mine  even  with  swords."'  He  assured  the  Empress 
Constantina  that  John's  ambition  was  a  sure  sign  of 
the  coming  of  Anti-Christ.^ 

Gregory's  pecuHar  diplomacy  only  excited  the  disdain 
of  the  subtler  Greeks.  His  position  is,  in  fact,  so  false 
— repudiating  as  "blasphemous"  a  title  which,  the 
whole  world  knew,  he  himself  claimed  in  substance — 
that  it  has  been  suggested  that  he  thought  the  term 
"Ecumenical  Bishop"  meant  "sole  bishop."  Such 
a  suggestion  implies  extraordinary  ignorance  at  Rome, 
but  there  is  no  need  to  entertain  it.  To  his  friends 
Anastasius  of  Antioch  and  Eulogius  of  Alexandria, 
Gregory  complained  that  the  phrase  was  an  affront,  not 
to  all  bishops,  but  merely  to  the  leading  patriarchs, 
and  the  whole  correspondence  shows  that  there  was  no 
misunderstanding.  Gregory  lacked  self-control.  Anas- 
tasius of  Antioch,  though  very  friendly,  ignored  his 
letters;  Eulogius  advised  him  to  be  quiet,  and  hinted 
that  people  might  suggest  envy;  the  Emperor  treated 
him  with  silent  disdain.  John  died,  but  his  successor 
Cyriacus  actually  used  the  offensive  title  in  telling 
Gregory  of  his  appointment.  There  was  another  out- 
burst, and  Maurice  impatiently  begged  the  Pope  not 
to  make  so  much  fuss  about ' '  an  idle  name. ' '  Eulogius 
of  Alexandria,  who  had  some  sense  of  humour,  addressed 
Gregory  as  "Universal  Pope,"  saying  gravely  that  he 
would  obey  his  "commands"  and  not  again  call  any 
man  "Universal  Bishop."  Possibly  Eulogius  knew 
that  Gregory  had,  a  few  years  before,  written  to  John 
of  Syracuse:  "As  to  the  Church  of  Constantinople,  who 
doubts  that  it  is  subject  to  the  Apostolic  See?"^ 
Gregory  protested  in  vain  until  the  close  of  his  life. 
The  Greeks  retained  their  "blasphemous"  title:  the 

'  v.,  20.  =>¥.,  21.  ^  IX.,  12. 


76      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Latins  continued  to  assert  their  authority  even  over 
the  Greek  bishops. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  year  602,  the  Emperor 
Maurice,  now  a  stricken  old  man  of  sixty-three,  was 
driven  from  his  throne  by  the  brutal  Phocas;  his  five 
boys  were  murdered  before  his  eyes  and  he  was  himself 
executed.  Phocas  sent  messengers  to  apprise  Gregory 
of  his  accession.  We  may  assume  that  these  messengers 
would  give  a  discreet  account  of  what  had  happened 
and,  possibly,  bring  an  assurance  of  the  new  Emperor's 
orthodoxy;  and  we  do  not  know  whether  Gregory's 
assiduous  servants  at  Constantinople  sent  him  any 
independent  account.  Yet,  when  we  have  made  every 
possible  allowance,  Gregory's  letters  to  Phocas  are 
''  painful.  The  first  letter^  begins,  "Glory  be  to  God  on 
high,"  and  sings  a  chant  of  victory  culminating  in, 
"Let  the  heavens  rejoice  and  the  earth  be  glad. "  The 
bloody  and  unscrupulous  adventurer  must  have  been 
himself  surprised.  Two  months  later,  Gregory  wrote 
again,  hailing  the  dawn  of  "the  day  of  liberty"  after 
the  night  of  tyranny.^  In  another  letter  he^  saluted 
Leontia,  the  new  Empress, — a  fit  consort  of  Phocas, — as 
"a  second  Pulcheria";  and  he  commended  the  Church 
of  St.  Peter's  to  her  generosity.  These  two  letters  were 
written  seven  months  after  the  murders,  and  it  is 
impossible  to  suppose  that  no  independent  report  had 
reached  Gregory  by  that  time.  Nor  do  we  find  that, 
though  he  lived  for  a  year  afterwards,  he  ever  undid 
those  lamentable  letters.  It  is  the  most  ominous 
presage  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Gregory  died  on  March  12,  604.  The  racking  pains 
of  gout  had  been  added  to  his  maladies,  and  plague  and 
famine   and   Lombards   continued   to   enfeeble   Italy. 

'XIII.,  31.  »  XIII.,  38.  3  XIII.,  39. 


Gregory  the  Great,  First  Mediaeval  Pope    77 

He  had  striven  heroically  to  secure  respect  for  ideals — 
for  religion,  justice,  and  honour — in  that  dark  world  on 
which  his  last  thoughts  lingered.  He  had  planted  many 
a  good  man  in  the  bishoprics  of  Europe.  He  had 
immensely  strengthened  the  Papacy,  and  a  strong 
central  power  might  do  vast  service  in  that  anarchic 
Europe.  Yet  the  historian  must  recognize  that  the 
world  was  too  strong  even  for  his  personality;  simony 
and  corruption  still  spread  from  Gaul  to  Africa,  and 
the  ideas  which  Gregory  most  surely  contributed  to  the 
mind  of  Europe  were  those  more  lamentable  or  more 
casuistic  deductions  from  his  creed  which  we  have 
noticed.  Within  a  year  or  so — to  make  the  best  we  can 
of  a  rumour  which  has  got  into  the  chronicles — the 
Romans  themselves  grumbled  that  his  prodigal  charity 
had  lessened  their  share  of  the  patrimonies,  and  we  saw 
that  more  bitter  complaints  against  him  were  current 
in  the  Middle  Ages.  Yet  he  was  a  great  Pope:  not 
great  in  intellect,  not  perfect  in  character,  but,  in  an 
age  of  confusion,  corruption,  and  cowardice,  a  mighty 
protagonist  of  high  ideals. 


CHAPTER  V 

HADRIAN  I.  AND  THE  TEMPORAL  POWER 

TWO  centuries  after  the  death  of  Gregory  the  Great 
we  still  find  an  occasional  prelate  of  rare  piety, 
such  as  Alcuin,  scanning  the  horizon  for  signs  of  the 
approaching  dissolution.  Vice  and  violence  had  so 
far  triumphed  that  it  seemed  as  if  God  must  soon 
lower  the  curtain  on  the  human  tragedy.  But  the 
successors  of  Gregory  in  the  chair  of  Peter  were  far 
from  entertaining  such  feelings.  From  the  heart  of 
the  threatening  north,  another  Constantine  had  come 
to  espouse  their  cause,  to  confound  their  enemies,  and 
to  invest  the  Papacy  with  a  power  that  it  had  never 
known  before.  The  story  of  the  Popes  as  temporal 
sovereigns  had  begun. 

Once  more  we  must  say  that  the  development  was 
an  almost  inevitable  issue  of  the  circumstances.  The 
Byzantine  rule  in  Italy  had  never  been  strong  enough 
to  restrain  the  Lombards,  and  the  rise  of  the  Moham- 
medans in  the  farther  East  now  made  Constantinople 
less  competent  than  ever  to  administer  and  to  defend 
its  trans-Adriatic  province.  First  the  city,  then  the 
duchy,  of  Rome  fell  under  the  care  of  the  Popes,  from 
sheer  lack  of  other  administrators  and  defenders. 
We  saw  this  in  the  Pontificate  of  Gregory.  Beyond 
the  Roman  duchy  were  the  scattered  patrimonies,  the 

78 


Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power     79 

estates  given  or  bequeathed  to  the  Papacy,  and  these 
were  often  towns,  or  included  towns.  Here  again  the 
lack  of  secular  authority  put  all  government  in  the 
hands  of  the  Pope's  agents.  Then  the  Eastern  court 
successively  adopted  two  heresies,  Monothelitism  and 
Iconoclasm,  and  the  dwindling  respect  of  Rome  for 
the  Greeks  passed  into  bitter  hostility.  Imperial 
troops  sacked  the  Lateran,  dragged  a  Pope  (Martin  I.) 
ignominiously  to  the  East,  and  induced  another  Pope 
(Honorius  I.)  to  ''subvert  the  immaculate  faith"  or, 
at  least,  to  "allow  the  immaculate  to  be  stained."^ 
On  the  whole,  however,  the  Pontiffs  who  succeeded 
Gregory  were  firm  and  worthy  men.  Rome  began  to 
shudder  between  the  fierce  Lombard  and  the  heretical 
Greek,  and  there  slowly  grew  in  the  Lateran  Palace 
the  design  of  winning  independence  of  the  erratic 
counsels  of  kings. 

At  this  juncture,  the  name  of  Charles  Martel  blazed 
through  the  Christian  world,  and  Gregory  IIL  and  the 
people  of  Rome  implored  him  to  take  them  under  his 
protection.  The  Lombards  were,  however,  auxiliaries 
of  Charles,  and,  as  Duchesne  suggests,  Charles  prob- 
ably resented  Gregory's  interference  in  secular  affairs; 
the  Pope  had  recently  encouraged  the  Lombard  dukes 
who  were  in  rebellion  against  their  king,  and  Liutprand 
had,  in  revenge,  seized  four  frontier  towns  of  the  Roman 
duchy.  Gregory  failed,  but  his  amiable  and  diplomatic 
successor.  Pope  Zachary,  changed  the  Roman  policy 
and  made  progress.  He  lent  Liutprand  the  use  of  the 
little  Papal  army  to  aid  in  suppressing  his  dukes,  and 
received  the  four  towns  and  other  "patrimonies."  A 
little  later,  the  Exarch  and  the  Archbishop  of  Ravenna 

'  So  the  successor  of  Honorius,  Leo  II.,  wrote  to  the  Emperor.  Ep., 
iii. 


8o      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

asked  Zachary  to  intercede  for  them,  and  the  genial 
Pope  again  saw  and  disarmed  the  Lombard.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  Liber  Pontificalis  is,  at  this  important 
stage,  so  barbarous — a  sad  reflection  of  Roman  culture, 
for  it  must  have  been  written  in  the  Lateran — that  one 
often  despairs  of  catching  its  exact  meaning,  but  it 
seems  to  me  clear  that  it  represents  Liutprand  as 
giving  the  district  of  Cesena  to  the  Papacy,  and  restor- 
ing the  exarchate  of  Ravenna  to  the  city  of  Ravenna. 
Presently,  however,  we  shall  find  the  Popes  claiming 
the  exarchate. 

The  next  step  was  the  famous  intervention  of  Rome 
in  the  affairs  of  the  Franks.  Pippin,  Mayor  of  the 
Palace,  aspired  to  the  throne  of  Childeric  III.,  and 
consulted  the  Papacy  as  to  the  moral  aspect  of  his 
design.  The  astute  Pontiff  went  far  beyond  the  terms 
of  the  request,  and  "ordered"  the  Franks  to  make 
Pippin  their  monarch :  an  act  which  founded  the  lucra- 
tive claim  of  Rome  that  she  had  conferred  the  kingdom 
on  the  father  of  Charlemagne.  Zachary's  successor, 
Stephen  II.,'  completed  the  work.  He  was  hard 
pressed  by  the  Lombard  King  Aistulph,  and,  after  a 
fruitless  appeal  to  Constantinople,  he  went  to  France 
in  753  and  implored  Pippin  to  "take  up  the  cause  of  the 
Blessed  Peter  and  the  RepubHc  of  the  Romans."  This 
broke  the  last  link  with  the  East,  and  Stephen  secured 
the  gratitude  of  Pippin  and  his  dynasty  by  anointing 
the  King  and  his  sons  and  pronouncing  a  dire  anathema 
— which  he  had  assuredly  no  right  to  pronounce — on 
any  who  should  ever  dare  to  displace  the  family  of 
Pippin  from  the  throne.  And  so  Pippin  swore  a  mighty 
oath  that  he  would  take  up  the  cause  of  the  Blessed 

'  Stephen  I.,  who  was  chosen  at  tlie  death  of  Zachary,  died  before 
consecration,  and  some  historians  decline  to  insert  him  in  the  series. 


Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power     8i 

Peter,  but  what  he  precisely  engaged  to  do  is  one  of  the 
great  controversies  of  history. 

It  is  clear  that  Pippin  was  made  "Patrician"  of 
Rome.  This  had  long  been  the  official  title  of  the 
Byzantine  Exarch  in  Italy,  and  it  has  no  definite  mean- 
ing when  it  is  transferred  to  Pippin  and  Charlemagne. 
Probably  this  vagueness  was  part  of  the  Roman  plan. 
The  Pope  wanted  Pippin's  army  without  his  suzerainty. 
Moreover,  in  conferring  on  Pippin  the  title  which  had 
belonged  to  the  Exarch,  it  was  probably  implied  that 
the  exarchate  became  part  of  "the  cause  of  the  Blessed 
Peter."  In  point  of  fact,  the  Liber  Pontificalis  goes 
on  to  say  that  Pippin  swore  to  win  for  Rome  "the 
exarchate  of  Ravenna  "  as  well  as  other  "  rights  and  ter- 
ritories of  the  Republic."  Later,  in  recording  the  life 
of  Hadrian  I.,  the  Liber  Pontificalis  says  that  Stephen 
asked  for  "divers  cities  and  territories  of  the  province 
of  Italy,  and  the  grant  of  them  to  the  Blessed  Peter 
and  his  Vicars  for  ever."  This  part  of  the  work  is, 
it  is  true,  under  grave  suspicion  of  interpolation,  but 
the  sentence  I  have  quoted  may  pass.  Pippin  swore 
to  secure  for  the  Popes,  not  only  the  Roman  duchy, 
and  "divers  cities  and  territories"  which  they  claimed 
as  "patrimonies,"  but  also  the  exarchate  of  Ravenna, 
to  which  they  had  no  right  whatever.  As  Hadrian 
I.  repeatedly  refers,  in  his  letters  to  Charlemagne,  to 
this  "Donation  of  Pippin,"  and  in  one  letter  (xcviii.) 
says  that  it  was  put  into  writing,  it  is  idle  to  contest  it.' 

Pippin  crossed  the  Alps  and  forced  Aistulph  to  yield, 

'  Pippin  repeated  his  oath  at  Quiercey,  and  the  bargain  is  sometimes 
described  as  the  "Quiercey  Donation."  The  "Fantuzzian  Fragment," 
an  ancient  document  which  professes  to  give  the  precise  extent  of  the 
donation,  is  full  of  errors  and  anachronisms,  and  is  not  now  trusted  by 
any  serious  historian. 
6 


82      Crises  in  the  Histor}"  of  the  Papacy 

but  as  soon  as  the  Franks  returned  to  their  country 
the  Lombard  refused  to  fulfil  his  obligations  and  again 
devastated  Italy.  No  answer  to  the  Pope's  desperate 
appeals  for  aid  came  from  France  and,  in  756,  when 
Rome  was  gravely  threatened,  Stephen  sent  a  very 
curious  letter  to  Pippin.'  It  is  written  in  the  name  of 
St.  Peter,  and  historians  are  divided  in  opinion  as  to 
whether  or  no  the  Pope  wished  to  impose  on  the  super- 
stition of  the  French  monarch  and  to  induce  him  to 
think  that  it  was  a  miraculous  appeal  from  the  apostle 
himself.  There  is  grave  reason  to  think  that  this 
was  Stephen's  design.  The  letter  does  not  identify  the 
Pope  with  Peter,  as  apologists  suggest;  it  speaks  of 
Stephen  as  a  personality  distinct  from  the  apostolic 
writer,  insists  that  it  is  the  disembodied  spirit  of  Peter 
in  heaven  that  addresses  the  King,  and  threatens  him 
with  eternal  damnation  unless  he  comes  to  Rome  and 
saves  "my  body"  and  "my  church"  and  "its  bishop." 
As  Pippin,  who  had  ignored  the  Pope's  appeals  so  long, 
at  once  hurried  to  Italy  on  receiving  this  letter,  we  may 
assume  that  he  regarded  it  as  miraculous.  However 
that  may  be,  he  crushed  Aistulph  and  forced  him  to 
sign  a  deed  abandoning  twenty-three  cities — the  ex- 
archate, the  adjacent  Pentapolis,  Comacchio,  and  Narni 
— to  the  Roman  See.  ^  The  representatives  of  the  East- 
ern court  had  hurried  to  Italy  and  had  claimed  this  ter- 
ritory, but  Pippin  bluntly  told  them  that  he  had  taken 
the  trouble  to  crush  Aistulph  only  "on  behalf  of  the 

'  Ep.,  V. 

'  This  is  sometimes  called  the  "Donation  of  Aistulph,"  but  is  really 
the  completed  Donation  of  Pippin.  On  this  point  the  Liher  Pontificalis 
is  confirmed  by  the  Annals  of  Eginhard,  in  which  we  read  that  Pippin 
gave  the  Roman  See  "Ravenna  and  the  Pentapolis  and  the  whole  ex- 
archate belonging  to  Ravenna"  (year  756),  and  by  the  later  letters 
of  Hadrian  I. 


Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power     83 

Blessed  Peter."  Byzantine  rule  in  Italy  was  hence- 
forth confined  to  Calabria  in  the  south  and  Venetia 
and  Istria  in  the  north.  The  Pope  succeeded  the 
Eastern  Emperor  by  right  of  gift  from  Pippin;  and 
Pippin  would,  no  doubt,  claim  that  the  provinces  were 
his  to  give  by  right  of  the  sword.  In  point  of  fact, 
however,  the  Papacy  had  claimed  the  exarchate  on 
some  previous  title,  and  that  title  is  unsound. 

We  may  now  pass  speedily  to  the  Pontificate  of 
Hadrian,  Aistulph  died  in  756;  Stephen  III.  in  757. 
The  ten  years'  Pontificate  of  Paul  I.  was  absorbed  in  a 
tiresome  effort  to  wring  the  new  rights  of  Rome  from 
the  new  Lombard  King,  Didier,  and  the  struggle  led 
to  the  severance  of  the  Romans  into  Frank  and  Lom- 
bard factions:  one  of  the  gravest  and  most  enduring 
results  of  the  secular  policy  of  the  Papacy.  When 
Paul  died,  the  Lombard  faction,  under  two  high  Papal 
officials  named  Christopher  and  Sergius,  led  Lombard 
troops  upon  the  opposing  faction  (who  had  elected  a 
Pope),  crushed  them  in  a  brutal  and  bloody  struggle, 
and  elected  Stephen  IV.  Stephen  was,  however,  not 
the  Lombard  King's  candidate,  and  Didier  intrigued 
at  Rome  against  the  power  of  Christopher  and  Sergius. 
He  bribed  the  Papal  chamberlain,  Paul  Afiarta,  and 
it  is  enough  to  say  that  before  long  Christopher  and 
Sergius  were  put  in  prison  and  deprived  of  their  eyes. 
This  was  done  at  the  Pope's  command ;  it  was  the  price 
of  the  restoration  by  Didier  of  the  cities  he  still  withheld, ' 

■  Writers  who  say  merely  that  Stephen  was  "suspected  of  complicity  " 
must  have  overlooked  the  testimony  of  Hadrian  himself  in  the  Liber 
Pontificalis.  He  tells  the  Lombard  envoys  that  Stephen  assured  him 
that,  on  Didier  promising  to  return  the  cities,  the  Pope  "caused  the  eyes 
of  Christopher  and  Sergius  to  be  put  out."  Stephen's  character  is 
further  illustrated  by  his  letter  to  the  sons  of  Pippin  {Ep.,  iv.),  when  it 
was  proposed  that  one  of  them  should  marry  Didier's  daughter  Hermin- 


84     Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Rome  was  still  under  the  shadow  of  this  brutal 
quarrel  when,  in  the  year  772,  Hadrian  became  Pope. 
He  came  of  a  noble  Roman  family,  and,  having  been 
left  an  orphan  in  tender  years,  he  had  been  reared  by  a 
pious  uncle.  Culture  at  Rome  in  the  eighth  century 
had  sunk  to  its  lowest  depth,  and  the  letters  of  Hadrian, 
like  all  documents  of  the  time,  are  full  of  the  grossest 
grammatical  errors.  In  the  school  of  virtue  and  asceti- 
cism, however,  he  was  a  willing  pupil.  His  fasts  and 
his  hair-shirt  attracted  attention  in  his  youth,  and  he 
was  so  favourably  known  to  all  at  the  time  of  Stephen's 
death  that  he  was  at  once  and  unanimously  elected. 

Didier  pressed  for  the  new  Pope's  friendship.  Char- 
lemagne had  already  tired  of  his  daughter,  or  no  longer 
needed  her  dowry  (the  Lombard  alliance),  and  had 
ignominiously  restored  her  to  her  father's  court  and 
ventured  upon  a  third  matrimonial  experiment.  We 
do  not  find  Hadrian  rebuking  the  Frank  King,  but  he 
sent  his  chamberlain  Afiarta  to  the  Lombard  court, 
to  arrange  for  the  restoration  of  the  cities  ceded  to 
Rome  and,  presumabl}^  form  an  alHance  with  Diclier. 
While  Afiarta  was  away,  however,  two  things  occurred 
which  caused  him  to  change  his  policy.  Carlomann 
died  in  France,  and  his  share  of  the  kingdom  was 
annexed  by  Charlemagne.  Carlomann's  widow  then 
fled  to  the  Lombard  court,  and  Didier  pressed  Hadrian 
to  anoint  her  sons  in  defiance  of  Charlemagne.  When 
Hadrian  hesitated,  Didier  invaded  the  Papal  territory 
and  took  several  towns;  while  Afiarta,  the  Pope  heard, 


gard.  They  were  both  married,  but  the  Pope  says  very  Uttle  about  the 
sin  of  divorce;  it  is  the  infamy  of  alhance  with  the  Lombards  which  he 
chiefly  denounces.  In  point  of  fact,  Charlemagne  divorced  his  wife 
and  married  Hermingard,  and  not  a  word  further  was  heard  from  Rome 
about  this  or  any  other  of  his  pecuHar  domestic  arrangements. 


Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power     85 

was  boasting  that  he  would  bring  Hadrian  to  Pavia 
with  a  rope  round  his  neck.  Meantime,  however, 
Afiarta's  rivals  at  Rome  informed  the  Pope  that  Afi- 
arta  had  had  the  blind  prisoner  Sergius  murdered,  and 
Hadrian  was  shocked.  He  ordered  the  arrest  of  his 
chamberlain,  and,  in  defiance  of  his  more  lenient  instruc- 
tions, Aiiarta  was  delivered  to  the  secular  authorities 
at  Ravenna  and  executed. 

Didier  now  set  his  forces  in  motion.  Hadrian,  hur- 
riedly gathering  his  troops  for  the  defence  of  the  duchy, 
appealed  to  Charlemagne  and  threatened  Didier  with 
excommunication.  It  seems  also  that  he  made  efforts 
to  secure  other  parts  of  Italy  for  the  Papacy.  Some 
professed  representatives  of  Spoleto,  which  was  subject 
to  Didier,  came  to  Rome  to  ask  that  their  duchy  might 
be  incorporated  in  the  Papal  territory,  and  their  long 
Lombard  hair  was  solemnly  cropped  in  Roman  fashion. 
We  shall  find  grave  reason  to  doubt  whether  these  men 
had  an  authentic  right  to  represent  Spoleto,  but  from 
that  moment  the  Popes  claimed  it  as  part  of  their 
temporal  dominion.  Didier  seems  to  have  underrated 
the  power  of  the  young  French  monarch.  Both 
Hadrian  and  Charlemagne  (who  offered  Didier  14,000 
gold  solidi  if  he  would  yield  the  disputed  cities)  en- 
deavoured to  negotiate  peacefully  with  him,  but  he 
refused  all  overtures,  and  the  Franks  crossed  the  Alps 
and  besieged  him  in  Pavia. 

Charlemagne  remained  before  Pavia  throughout  the 
winter  of  773-774,  and,  when  Holy  Week  came  round, 
he  went  to  Rome  for  the  celebration  of  Easter.  Hadrian 
hurriedly  arranged  to  meet  his  guest  with  honour, 
though  the  account  of  his  ceremonies  makes  us  smile 
when  we  recall  how  imperial  Rome  would  have  received 
such  a  monarch.     Thirty  miles  from  Rome  the  civic 


86      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

and  military  officials,  with  the  standards  of  the  Roman 
militia,  met  the  conqueror;  a  mile  from  the  city  the 
various  "schools"  of  the  militia,  and  groups  of  children 
with  branches  of  palm  and  olive,  streamed  out  to  meet 
the  Franks,  and  accompanied  them  to  St.  Peter's. 
The  awe  with  which  Charlemagne  approached  the  old 
capital  of  the  world,  and  the  feeling  of  the  Romans 
when  they  gazed  on  the  gigantic  young  Frank,  in  his 
short  silver-bordered  tunic  and  blue  cloak,  with  a  shower 
of  golden  curls  falling  over  his  broad  shoulders,  are 
left  to  our  imagination  by  the  chronicler.*  His  one 
aim  is  to  show  how  the  famous  donation  of  temporal 
power  was  the  natural  culmination  of  the  piety  of  the 
Frankish  monarch.  He  tells  us  how  Charlemagne 
walked  on  foot  the  last  mile  to  St.  Peter's:  how,  when 
he  reached  the  great  church  on  Holy  Saturday,  he 
went  on  his  knees  and  kissed  each  step  before  he  em- 
braced the  delighted  Pope:  how  Frank  bishops  and 
warriors  mingled  with  the  Romans,  and  how  the  vast 
crowd  was  thrilled  by  the  emotions  of  that  historic 
occasion.  He  describes  how  Charlemagne  humbly 
asked  permission  to  enter  Rome,  and  spent  three  days 
in  paying  reverence  at  its  many  shrines;  and  how,  on 
the  Wednesday,  Pope  and  King  met  in  the  presence  of 
the  body  of  Peter  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  Papal 
territory . 

In  a  famous  passage,  which  has  inspired  a  small 
library  of  controversial  writing,  this  writer  of  the  life 
of  Hadrian  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis  affirms  that  Char- 
lemagne assigned  to  St.  Peter  and  his  successors  for 
ever  the  greater  part  of  Italy:  in  modem  terms,  the 
whole  of  Italy  except  Lombardy  in  the  north,  which 
was  left  to  the  Lombards,  and  Naples  and  Calabria  in 

•  The  visit  is  described  very  fully  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis. 


Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power     87 

the  south,  where  the  Greeks  still  lingered.  The  duchies 
of  Beneventum  and  Spoleto,  the  provinces  of  Venetia 
and  Istria,  and  the  island  of  Corsica,  which  were  not 
at  the  disposal  of  Charlemagne,  are  expressly  included; 
and  it  is  said  that  one  copy  of  the  deed,  signed  by 
Charlemagne  and  his  nobles  and  bishops,  was  put  into 
the  tomb  of  St.  Peter,  and  another  copy  was  taken  to 
France.  This  is  the  basis  of  the  claim  of  later  Popes 
to  the  greater  part  of  Italy. 

But  the  suspicions  of  historians  are  naturally  awak- 
ened when  they  learn  that  both  copies  of  this  priceless 
document  have  disappeared:  that  the  only  description 
of  its  terms  is  this  passage  of  the  Liber  Pontificalis, 
which  was  presumably  written  in  the  Papal  chancellery : 
and  that  the  art  of  forging  documents  was  extensively 
cultivated  in  the  eighth  century.  The  famous  "Dona- 
tion of  Constantine, "  a  document  which  makes  the 
first  Christian  Emperor,  when  he  leaves  Rome,  entrust 
the  whole  Western  Empire  to  Pope  Silvester,  is  a 
flagrant  forgery  of  the  time;  indeed,  most  historians 
now  conclude  that  it  was  fabricated  at  Rome  during 
the  Pontificate  of  Hadrian.  Certainly  the  Pope  seems 
to  refer  to  it  when,  in  'j'jy,  he  writes  to  Charlemagne: 
"Just  as  in  the  time  of  the  Blessed  Silvester,  Bishop 
of  Rome,  the  Holy  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Roman 
Church  was  elevated  and  exalted  by  the  most  pious 
Emperor  Constantine  the  Great,  of  holy  memory,  and 
he  deigned  to  bestow  on  it  power  in  these  western 
regions.''^ 

'  Ep.,  Ix.  Some  writers  hold  that  this  is  merely  an  allusion  to  the 
Acta  S.  Silvestri,  another  forgery  of  the  time,  but  the  words  which  I 
have  italicized  point  more  clearly  to  the  "Donation  of  Constantine." 
For  the  literature  of  the  controversy  see  Dr.  A.  Solmi's  Stato  e  Chiesa 
(1901),  pp.  12-13.  It  is  now  the  general  belief  that  the  "Donation" 
was  fabricated  at  Rome,  and  probably  in  the  Lateran,  between  750  and 


88      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

The  equally  mendacious  Acta  S.  Silvestri  was  cer- 
tainly known  to  Hadrian,  and  we  do  not  trace  it  earlier; 
and  it  is  probable  enough  that  one  or  both  of  these 
documents  were  shown  to  Charlemagne.  Some  histo- 
rians believe  that  the  "Fantuzzian  Fragment"  (a  simi- 
larly false  account  of  the  Donation  of  Pippin)  belongs 
to  the  same  inventive  period,  and  this  is  not  unlikely. 

It  cannot  be  questioned  that  Charlemagne  renewed 
and  enlarged  his  father's  donation,  since  Hadrian's 
letters  to  him  repeatedly  affirm  this.  Immediately 
after  his  return  to  France,  Hadrian  reminds  him  that 
he  has  confirmed  Pippin's  gift  of  the  exarchate,^  and, 
a  little  later,  he  recalls  that,  when  he  was  in  Rome,  he 
granted  the  duchy  of  Spoleto  to  the  Blessed  Peter.* 
Spoleto  did  not,  in  point  of  fact,  pass  under  Papal 
rule,  but  we  must  conclude  from  the  Pope's  words 
that  Charlemagne  in  some  way  approved  the  action 
of  Hadrian  in  annexing  the  duchy,  and  in  this  sense 
enlarged  the  donation  made  by  his  father.  Beyond 
this  single  instance  of  Spoleto,  however,  the  letters  of 
Hadrian  do  not  confirm  the  writer  of  his  life  in  the 
Liber  Pontificalis  in  his  description  of  the  extent  of 
Charlemagne's  gift,  ^  and  their  silence  supports  the  criti- 

781.  Dr.  Hodgkin  {Italy  and  her  Invaders,  vi.)  has  charitably  suggested 
that  perhaps  the  document  was  playfully  composed  by  some  Papal 
clerk  in  his  leisure  hours  and  taken  seriously  by  a  later  generation,  but 
apologists  do  not  seem  to  grasp  at  this  straw. 

^Ep.,\ii.  ="£/>.,  Ivii. 

3  Dr.  Mann  (vol.  i.,  part  ii.,  p.  423)  finds  some  confirmation  in  "a 
passage  of  Hadrian's  letter  to  Constantine  and  Irene,  read  in  the  second 
session  of  the  Seventh  General  Council."  This  part  of  Hadrian's  letter 
was  not  read  in  the  Council.  It  is  not  included  in  the  letter  in  the 
Migne  edition  (vol.  xcvi.),  and  in  Mansi  (xii.,  1072)  it  is  explained  that 
the  latter  part  of  Hadrian's  letter,  in  which  the  passage  occurs,  was 
not  read  to  the  Greeks.  In  any  case,  the  passage  merely  affirms  that 
Charlemagne  gave  the  Roman  Sec   "  provinces  and  cities  and  other 


Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power     89 

cal  view.  While  he  complains  of  outrages  in  Istria  and 
Venetia,  while  he  occupies  himself  in  a  long  series  of 
letters  with  the  affairs  of  Beneventum,  he  makes  no 
claim  that  these  provinces  were  given  to  him  by  Charle- 
magne. The  whole  story  of  the  Papacy  during  the 
life  of  Charlemagne  is  inconsistent  with  any  but  the 
more  modest  estimate  of  the  donation:  that  it  was  a 
vague  sanction  of  the  Spoletan  proceeding,  in  addition 
to  confirming  the  Donation  of  Pippin. 

The  learned  editor  of  the  Liber  Pontificalis,  Duchesne, 
is  convinced  that  the  first  part  of  the  life  of  Hadrian, 
which  culminates  in  this  donation,  was  written  by  a 
contemporary  cleric  and  must  be  regarded  as  genuine. 
He  suggests  that,  when  Hadrian  perceived  the  imprac- 
ticability of  Charlemagne  winning  two  thirds  of  Italy 
for  the  Roman  See,  he  released  the  monarch  from  his 
oath.  This  is  inconsistent  alike  with  the  character  of 
Hadrian  and  the  terms  of  his  correspondence,  and 
recent  historians  generally  regard  the  range  ascribed 
to  Charlemagne's  donation  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis  as 
either  fictitious  or  enlarged  by  later  interpolations. 
The  first  part  of  Duchesne's  study — the  proof  that  the 
early  chapters  of  the  life  of  Hadrian  were  written  by 
a  contemporary — is  convincing:  the  second  part — that 
the  Pope  sacrificed  five  or  six  great  provinces  because 
it  was  difficult  at  the  time  to  get  them — has  not  even 
the  most  feeble  documentary  basis  and  is  unlikely  in 
the  last  degree,  to  judge  by  the  known  facts.  Either 
some  later  writer  during  the  Pontificate  of  Leo  HI. 

territories,"  and  this  is  quite  consistent  with  tiie  more  modest  esti- 
mate of  his  donation.  A  letter  written  by  Leo  III.  to  Charlemagne 
thirty  years  afterwards  (when  the  Papal  description  of  the  donation 
certainly  existed),  speaking  of  his  gift  of  the  island  of  Corsica,  is  not 
conclusive. 


90      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

(or  later)  rounded  the  narrative  of  the  early  years  of 
Hadrian  with  this  grandiose  forgery,  or  the  passage 
which  specifies  the  extent  of  the  donation  was  inter- 
polated in  the  narrative.  For  either  supposition  we 
have  ample  analogy  in  the  life  of  the  eighth  century: 
for  a  Papal  surrender  of  whole  provinces  we  have  no 
analogy  whatever,  and  there  is  not  the  faintest  al- 
lusion to  it  in  Hadrian's  forty-five  extant  letters  to 
Charlemagne.  ^ 

The  life  of  Hadrian  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis  consists, 
as  will  already  have  been  realized,  of  two  very  distinct 
parts.  The  first  is  a  consecutive  and  circumstantial 
narrative  of  events  up  to  the  departure  of  Charlemagne 
from  Rome  in  the  spring  of  774.  This  seems  to  have 
been  written  by  an  eye-witness,  possibly  a  clerk  in  the 
Papal  service;  and  it  seems  equally  probable  that  this 
contemporary  narrative  was  rounded  by  a  later  hand 
with  a  fictitious  account  of  Charlemagne's  conduct 
on  the  Wednesday.  Immediately  afterwards,  Charle- 
magne returned  to  Pavia,  conquered  Didier,  and  carried 
him  off  to  a  French  monastery.  This  occurred  in  the 
second  year  of  Hadrian's  Pontificate,  yet  in  the  Liber 
Pontificalis,  the  remaining  twenty  years  are  crushed 
into  a  few  chaotic  paragraphs,  and  these  are  chiefly 


'  See  the  dissertation  appended  to  vol.  vi.  of  Dr.  Hodgkin's  Italy 
and  her  Invaders,  where  the  author  contends  that  a  late  writer  used  the 
contemporary  account  of  Hadrian's  early  years  to  lead  up  to  this  ficti- 
tious donation.  The  hypothesis  of  interpolation  in  a  genuine  narrative 
is  urged  by  Dr.  W.  Martens  in  his  Die  Romische  Frage  (1881)  and  Be- 
leuchtung  der  ncuesten  Controversen  ilher  die  R.  Frage  (1898).  Professor 
Th.  Lindner  {Die  sogenannten  Schenkiingen  Pippins,  Karls  des  Grossen, 
und  Otto's  I.  an  die  Pdpste,  1896)  suggests  that  Charlemagne  intended 
only  to  secure  the  patrimonies  in  the  provinces  named  in  the  donation, 
but  this  is  not  consistent  with  the  language  of  the  Liber  Pontificalis, 
though  it  may  very  well  represent  the  actual  intention  of  Charlemagne. 


Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power     91 

concerned  with  his  lavish  decoration  of  the  Roman 
churches.  We  turn  to  his  letters,  and  from  these  we 
can  construct  a  satisfactory  narrative  and  can  obtain 
a  good  idea  of  the  writer's  personality. 

Of  the  fifty-five  extant  letters  of  Hadrian  no  less 
than  forty-five  are  addressed  to  Charlemagne,  and  they 
are  overwhelmingly  concerned  with  his  temporal  pos- 
sessions. He  is  rather  a  King- Pope  than  a  Pope-King. 
For  twenty  years  he  assails  Charlemagne  with  queru- 
lous, petulant,  or  violent  petitions  to  protect  the  rights 
of  the  Blessed  Peter,  and  it  is  not  illiberally  suspected 
that  the  lost  replies  of  Charlemagne  contained  expres- 
sions of  impatience.  The  Pope's  letters,  with  their 
unceasing  references  to  the  Blessed  Peter  and  all  that 
he  has  done  for  Charlemagne,  are  not  pleasant  reading, 
and  the  Frank  King,  whose  Italian  policy  seems  to 
baffle  his  biographers,  must  have  realized  that  his 
position  as  suzerain  of  the  Blessed  Peter  was  delicate 
and  difficult.  Hadrian  on  the  other  hand,  found  that 
the  temporal  rights  of  his  See  left  comparatively  little 
time  for  spiritual  duties  and  laid  a  strain  on  his  piety. 
Once  in  a  few  years  he  smites  a  heretic  or  arraigns 
some  delinquent  prelate,  but  the  almost  unvarying 
theme  of  his  letters  is  a  complaint  that  the  Blessed 
Peter  is  defrauded  of  his  rights,  and  he  is  at  times 
drawn  into  political  intrigues  which  do  not  adorn  his 
character.  We  may  recognize  that  his  ambition  was 
as  impersonal  as  that  of  Gregory  the  Great,  yet  the 
spectacle  of  his  plaints  and  manoeuvres  is  not  one  on 
which  we  can  dwell  with  admiration. 

Charlemagne  had  scarcely  returned  to  France  when 
he  received  from  Hadrian  a  bitter  complaint  that  Leo, 
Archbishop  of  Ravenna,  had  seized  the  cities  of  the 
exarchate  and  was  endeavouring  to  win  those  of   the 


92      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Pentapolis.^  Charlemagne  did  not  respond;  indeed 
Leo  went  in  person  to  the  Frank  court,  and  it  is  signifi- 
cant that  after  his  return  he  was,  Hadrian  says,  more 
insolent  and  ambitious  than  ever.  He  cast  out  the 
officials  sent  from  Rome  and,  by  the  aid  of  his  troops, 
took  over  the  rule  of  the  exarchate.  Charlemagne 
was  busy  with  his  Saxon  war,  and  he  paid  no  attention 
to  the  Pope's  piteous  appeals.^  Leo  died  in  ']']'], 
however,  and  his  successor  seems  to  have  submitted 
to  Rome.  Charlemagne  had  meantime  visited  Italy 
and  may  have  intervened. 

The  business  which  brought  Charlemagne  to  Italy 
in  776  was  more  serious.  Arichis,  Duke  of  Beneventum, 
one  of  the  ablest  and  most  cultivated  of  the  Lombards, 
who  was  married  to  a  daughter  of  Didier,  was  an  in- 
dependent sovereign.  Hildeprand,  Duke  of  Spoleto, 
who  had — in  spite  of  the  supposed  annexation  of  Spo- 
leto— chosen  to  regard  Charlemagne  rather  than  Hadrian 
as  his  suzerain,  was  on  good  terms  with  Arichis,  and  the 
Pope  looked  on  their  friendship  with  gloomy  suspicion. 
He  reported  to  Charlemagne  that  they  were  conspir- 
ing against  his  authority.  Charlemagne's  envoys  were 
due  at  Rome,  and  Hadrian  bitterly  complained  to  him 
that  they  had  gone  first  to  Spoleto  and  had  "greatly 
increased  the  insolence  of  the  Spolctans,"  and  had  then, 
in  spite  of  all  the  Pope's  protests,  proceeded  to  Bene- 
ventum.^ It  is  clear  that  there  was  in  Italy  a  strong 
feeling  against  the  Papal  expansion,  and  that  the 
occasional  appeals  for  incorporation  in  the  Roman 
territory  came  from  clerics.  Spoleto  remained  inde- 
pendent, in  spite  of  Hadrian's  claim  that  it  had  been 
promised  to  him;  in  fact,  it  was  clearly  the  policy  of 
Charlemagne  to  leave  these  matters  to  local  option, 

'  Ep.,  Hi.  '  Ep.,  liii.,  liv.,  Iv.  »  Ep.,  Ivii. 


Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power     93 

and  he  can  scarcely  have  made  a  definite  promise  to 
include  Spoleto  in  his  "donation." 

In  the  following  year,  Hadrian  sent  more  alarming 
news.  Adelchis,  a  son  of  Didier,  had  fled  to  the  Greeks 
and  was  pressing  them  to  assist  in  overthrowing  the 
Frank-Roman  system.  Hadrian  said  that  Arichis 
and  Hildeprand,  as  well  as  Hrodgaud  of  Friuli  and 
Reginald  of  Clusium,  had  conspired  with  the  Greeks, 
and  he  implored  the  King  "by  the  living  God"  to  come 
at  once.  Charlemagne  came,  and  chastised  Hrodgaud, 
but  he  does  not  seem  to  have  found  serious  ground  for 
the  charges  against  the  Dukes  of  Spoleto  and  Beneven- 
tum.  Presently,  however,  Hadrian  was  able  to  an- 
nounce more  definitely  a  conspiracy  against  his  rule; 
the  Beneventans  and  Greeks  had  captured  some  of 
his  Campanian  towns,  and  Tassilo,  Duke  of  Bavaria 
(son-in-law of  Didier),  had  joined  them.  It  is  true  that 
Charlemagne  was,  at  the  time,  busy  in  Saxony,  but 
it  is  equally  clear  that  he  was  angry  with  the  Pope  and 
resented  his  efforts  to  secure  the  two  duchies.  In  ']'j^^ 
Hadrian  wrote  that  he  rejoiced  to  hear  that  Charle- 
magne was  at  length  coming;  he  sent  him  a  long  list, 
from  the  Roman  archives,  of  all  the  territories  to  which 
Rome  laid  claim,  and  invited  the  Frank  to  be  a  second 
Constantine.'  But  Charlemagne  came  not,  and  in  his 
next  letter  Hadrian  has  to  lament  that  the  Frank  has 
committed  the  "unprecedented  act"  of  arresting  the 
Papal  Legate  for  insolence,  and  the  Lombards  are 
openly  exulting  in  his  humiliation.^ 

There  seems  then  to  have  been  a  long  period  without 
correspondence  between  the  two  courts,  or  else  it  has 
not  been  thought  judicious  to  preserve  the  letters. 
In  781,  however,  Charlemagne  came  to  Rome.     Tassilo 

'  £p.,  Ix.  =>  Ep.,  Ixii. 


94      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

was  disarmed,  and,  as  Charlemagne's  daughter  was 
betrothed  to  the  son  of  the  Eastern  Empress  Irene, 
the  Greeks  must  have  been  pacified.  The  six  years  of 
peace  which  followed  were,  no  doubt,  used  by  Hadrian 
in  that  princely  decoration  of  the  Roman  churches  of 
which  I  will  speak  later  and  in  some  attention  to  eccle- 
siastical affairs.  We  find  him  writing,  in  785,  to  the 
bishops  of  Spain;  though  he  seems  to  have  had  little 
influence  on  the  Spanish  heresy  which  he  denounced, 
and  it  was  left  to  the  more  vigorous  attacks  of  Charle- 
magne.^ In  786  he  extended  his  pastoral  care  to 
England,  which  had  not  seen  a  Roman  envoy  since  the 
days  of  Gregory.  His  Legates  were  received  with  hon- 
our, but  they  reported  that  the  English  Church  was  in 
a  deplorable  condition.^  King  Off  a  made  a  princely 
gift  for  the  maintenance  of  lamps  in  St.  Peter's  (a 
euphemism  of  the  Roman  court)  and  for  the  poor,  and 
it  is  curious  to  read  that  Hadrian  consented,  at  the 
King's  request,  to  make  Lichfield  a  metropolitan  see. 

The  peace  was  broken  in  787  by  an  active  alliance  of 
Arichis,  Tassilo,  and  the  Greeks,  and  Charlemagne  again 
set  out  for  Italy.  Arichis  was  forced  to  pay  the  Franks 
a  heavy  annual  tribute  and  give  his  sons  as  hostages. 
The  elder  son  and  Arichis  himself  died  soon  afterwards, 
and  Hadrian  again  made  lamentable  efforts  to  secure 
the  duchy.  The  accomplished  widow  of  Arichis, 
Adelperga,  besought  Charlemagne  to  bestow  it  on  her 
younger  son,  Romwald,  and  Hadrian  begged  him  not 
to  comply.  He  trusted  Charlemagne  would  not  sus- 
pect him  of  coveting  the  duchy  himself-^;  but  he  re- 

'  Ep.,  Ixxxiii. 

*  See  the  interesting  letter  of  Bishop  George,  one  of  Hadrian's  Legates, 
in  Jafle's  Bibliotheca  Rerum  Germanicarum,  vi.,  155,  and  compare  The 
Saxon  Chronicle.  *  Ep.,  xc. 


Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power     95 

frained  from  suggesting  an  alternative  to  the  son  of 
Arichis,  and  at  length  he  boldly  warned  Charlemagne 
not  to  "prefer  Romwald  to  the  Blessed  Peter."' 
Other  indications  of  the  building  of  the  temporal  power 
are  not  more  edifying.  We  read  that  representative 
inhabitants  of  Capua  and  other  Beneventan  cities 
have  sought  incorporation  in  the  Roman  "repubHc"; 
and  then  we  read  that  the  cities  have  been  handed  over 
to  the  Papacy  without  inhabitants — a  clear  sign  of  the 
wishes  of  the  majority — and  that  Romwald  is  assuring 
his  subjects,  on  the  authority  of  Charlemagne,  that 
they  need  not  pass  under  the  authority  of  Rome  unless 
they  will. 

Charlemagne  again  ignored  the  Pope's  efforts,  and 
soon  had  the  Spoletan  and  Beneventan  troops  co- 
operating with  his  own  against  the  Greeks.  Hadrian 
obtained  no  control  over  Spoleto  and  Beneventum,  and 
the  fact  that  he  does  not  charge  Charlemagne  with 
failing  to  keep  faith  with  the  Blessed  Peter  casts  fur- 
ther discredit  on  the  supposed  donation.  In  Venetia 
and  Istria  he  had  no  influence  whatever,  and  his  agents 
were  barbarously  treated.^  Corsica  never  enters  his 
correspondence.  His  power  was  confined  to  the  Roman 
duchy,  the  exarchate,  and  the  Pentapolis;  and  even 
there  it  was  much  assailed.  It  is  true  that  in  an  hour 
of  resolution  he  forbade  Charlemagne  to  interfere  in  an 
ecclesiastical  election  at  Ravenna,  and  it  was  as  master 
of  Ravenna  that  he  gave  Charlemagne  the  marbles 
and  mosaics  of  the  old  palace.  But  he  complained 
bitterly  that  Charlemagne  listened  to  his  critics  in 
Ravenna,'  and  he  had  repeatedly  to  appeal  to  Frank 
authority  to  enforce  his  sentences.  To  the  end  his 
letters  to  Charlemagne  were  querulous  and  exacting. 

'  Ep.,  xciii.  '  Ep.,  Ixxxii.  ^  Ep.,  xcviii. 


96      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

A  few  years  before  his  death  he  heard  that  Offa  of 
England  was  proposing  to  Charlemagne  to  depose  him, 
and  he  protested,  with  more  petulance  than  dignity, 
that  he  had  been  elected,  not  by  men,  but  by  Jesus 
Christ.^ 

This  demoralizing  concern  for  his  temporal  rights 
seems  to  have  warped  Hadrian's  religious  temperament 
and  to  have  left  him  little  time  for  purely  spiritual 
duties.  A  single  lengthy  letter  to  Spain  and  a  legation 
to  England  are  all  that  we  have  as  yet  related,  and  there 
is  little  to  add.  His  third  exercise  of  jurisdiction  was 
unfortunate,  Irene  had  restored  the  worship  of  images 
in  the  East  and  was  eager  for  a  reconciliation  with 
Western  Christendom.  She  invited  Hadrian  to  preside 
at  an  Ecumenical  Council.  His  reply  was  admirable 
in  doctrinal  respects,  but  he  annoyed  the  Greeks  by  at 
once  claiming  all  his  patrimonies  in  the  East  and  pro- 
testing against  the  title  used  by  Archbishop  Tarasius. 
They  retorted  by  suppressing  part  of  his  letter  to  the 
Council  of  Nicsea  (787),  at  which  his  Legates  presided, 
and  ignored  both  his  requests. 

This,  however,  was  only  the  beginning  of  fresh  and 
grave  trouble  with  Charlemagne.  The  Greeks  had  an- 
noyed him  by  cancelling  the  betrothal  of  Constantine 
with  his  daughter  Rotrud,  and  there  is  reason  to  suspect 
that  he  already  contemplated  assuming  the  title  of 
Emperor.  There  was,  at  all  events,  a  sore  feeling  in 
France,  and  when  the  findings  of  the  Council  of  Nica^a 
reached  that  country,  they  were  treated  with  disdain 
and  insult.  Hadrian  had,  in  his  annoyance  with  the 
Greeks,  refused  to  give  a  formal  sanction  to  their 
findings,  but  he  had  so  far  accepted  them  as  to  issue 
from  the  Papal  chancellery  a  Latin  translation  of  the  acta 

■  Ep.,  xcvi. 


Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power     97 

of  the  Council.  We  can  readily  believe  that  the  trans- 
lation would  be  crude  and  inaccurate,  but  the 
quarrel  was  not  based  on  these  fine  shades  of  meaning. 
The  French  conception  of  the  use  of  images  differed 
not  only  from  that  of  the  Greeks,  but  from  that  of 
Hadrian.  The  northern  prelates  held  that  images 
were  to  be  regarded  only  as  ornaments  and  as  re- 
minders of  the  saints  they  represented.  In  this  sense 
Charlemagne  issued,  in  his  own  name  (though  we 
justly  suspect  the  authorship  of  Alcuin),  the  large 
work  which  is  commonly  known  as  The  Caroline  Books. 
It  scathingly  attacked  the  Greek  canons  which  had 
been  accepted  by  the  Pope ;  it  took  no  notice  of  Hadrian's 
doctrinal  letter  to  the  Council;  and,  in  defiance  of  the 
familiar  Roman  custom,  it  denounced  as  sinful  the 
practice  of  burning  lights  before  statues  or  paying 
them  any  kind  or  degree  of  worship.  It  contained 
assurances  of  its  loyalty  to  the  Apostolic  See,  but 
Hadrian  must  have  felt,  when  at  length  some  version 
or  other  of  the  work  was  sent  to  him  (three  or  four 
years  after  its  publication),  that  it  was  an  outrage  on 
his  spiritual  authority.  But  the  book  bore  the  name 
of  Charlemagne,  and  in  his  lengthy  reply  Hadrian 
prudently  concealed  his  annoyance.^  In  the  same 
year  (794)  the  Frank  bishops  held  a  synod  at  Frankfort 
and  resolutely  maintained  their  position.  Whether 
this  synod  followed  or  preceded  Hadrian's  letter  we 
cannot  say,  but  the  Franks  continued  for  years  to 
reject  the  Roman  doctrine.^ 

'  Migne,  vol.  xcviii.,  col.  1247. 

^  Alcuin  afterwards  wrote  a  very  abject  letter  to  the  Pope  {Ep.,  xviii.), 
and  this  is  sometimes  represented  as  an  expression  of  regret,  but  he 
does  not  mention  the  image-question  and  plainly  refers  to  his  general 
unworthiness.  The  Franks  were  convinced  that  the  Pope  was  wrong. 
See  the  Acta  of  the  Frankfort  Council  in  Mansi,  xiii.,  864. 


98      Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Hadrian's  biographer  discreetly  ignores  these  failures 
of  his  attempts  to  assert  his  authority,  and  almost 
confines  himself  to  the  record  of  his  work  in  Rome  it- 
self. He  restored  and  extended  the  walls,  and  added 
no  less  than  four  hundred  towers  to  their  defences.  He 
repaired  four  aqueducts,  and  rebuilt,  on  a  grander 
scale,  the  colonnade  which  ran  from  the  Tiber  to  St. 
Peter's.  The  interior  of  St.  Peter's  he  decorated  with 
a  splendour  that  must  have  seemed  to  the  degenerate 
Romans  imperial.  The  choir  was  adorned  with  silver- 
plated  doors,  and,  in  part,  a  silver  pavement;  while 
a  great  silver  chandelier,  of  1345  lights,  was  suspended 
from  its  ceiling.  Large  statues  of  gold  and  silver 
were  placed  on  the  altars,  and  the  walls  were  enriched 
with  purple  hangings  and  mosaics.  Vestments  of 
the  finest  silk,  shining  with  gold  and  precious  stones, 
were  provided  for  the  clergy.  To  other  churches, 
also,  Hadrian  made  liberal  gifts  of  gold  and  silver 
statues,  Tyrian  curtains,  gorgeous  vestments,  and 
mosaics.  The  long  hostility  to  images  and  image- 
makers  in  the  East  had  driven  large  numbers  of  Greek 
artists  to  Italy,  and  the  vast  sums  which  the  new 
temporal  dominions  sent  to  Rome  enabled  Hadrian  to 
employ  them.  After  a  long  and  profound  degenera- 
tion "the  fine  arts  began  slowly  to  revive."'  For 
literary  culture,  however,  Hadrian  did  nothing;  the 
attempt  of  some  writers  to  associate  him  with  Charle- 
magne's efforts  to  relieve  the  gross  illiteracy  of  Europe 
is  without  foundation. 

In  charity,  too,  the  Pope  was  distinguished.  He 
founded  new  deaconries  for  the  care  of  the  poor,  and 


'  R.  Cattaneo,  Architecture  in  Italy  from  tJie  Sixth  to  the  Eleventh 
Century  (1896). 


Hadrian  I.  and  the  Temporal  Power     99 

at  times  of  flood  and  fire  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  visit 
and  reHeve  the  sufferers.  But  both  his  artistic  and 
his  philanthropic  work  was  almost  restricted  to  Rome. 
He  added  a  few  farms  to  those  which  his  predecessors 
had  planted  on  the  desolate  Campagna,  but  the  great 
and  increasing  resources  of  the  Papacy  were  chiefly 
used  in  laying  the  foundations  of  the  material  splendour 
which  would  one  day  daze  the  eyes  of  Europe,  and  in 
paying  soldiers  to  protect  it  against  his  political  rivals. 
It  must  be  added  that  he  was  one  of  the  early  founders 
of  the  Roman  tradition  of  nepotism.  He  appointed 
his  nephew  Paschalis  to  one  of  the  chief  Papal  offices, 
and  the  brutality  of  the  man,  which  will  appear  pre- 
sently, shows  that  the  promotion  was  not  made  on  the 
ground  of  merit. 

His  long  Pontificate  came  to  an  end  on  December 
25th  (or  26th)  in  the  year  795,  and  it  is  an  indication 
of  the  new  position  of  the  Papacy  that  his  successor 
at  once  sent  to  Charlemagne  the  keys  of  Rome  and  of 
the  tomb  of  St.  Peter.  We  have  the  assurance  of 
Eginhard  that  the  Frank  monarch  wept  as  one  weeps 
who  has  lost  a  dear  son  or  brother,  and  he  afterwards 
sent  to  Rome  a  most  honouring  epitaph  of  Hadrian, 
cut  in  gold  letters  on  black  marble.  The  character  of 
Charlemagne  and  his  inmost  attitude  toward  the  new 
Papacy  he  had  created  do  not  seem  to  me  to  be  suffi- 
ciently elucidated  by  any  of  his  biographers,  but  with 
that  we  are  not  concerned.  He  had  deep  regard  for 
Hadrian,  in  spite  of  the  Pope's  failings.  The  new  royal 
state  was  too  heavy  a  burden  for  Hadrian  I.  to  bear 
with  dignity.  One  cannot  doubt  the  sincerity  of  his 
religion,  his  humanity,  and  his  impersonal  devotion 
to  what  he  conceived  to  be  his  duty.  But  it  is  equally 
plain  that  in  the  first  Pope-King  the  cares  of  earthly 


100    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

dominion  enfeebled  the  sense  of  spiritual  duty  and  at 
times  warped  his  character.  It  needed  a  great  man 
to  pass  without  scathe  through  such  a  transformation. 
Hadrian  I.  was  not  a  great  man. 


CHAPTER  VI 

NICHOLAS  I.   AND  THE  FALSE  DECRETALS 

THE  coronation  of  Charlemagne  by  the  Pope  in  the 
year  800  was  also  the  crowning  of  the  new  Papal 
system.  The  ambition  for  temporal  power  had  al- 
ready disclosed  the  grave  dangers  which  it  brought. 
Soon  after  the  death  of  Hadrian  I.  the  horrible  spectacle 
was  witnessed  at  Rome  of  high  Papal  officials — one  a 
nephew  of  the  late  Pope — attempting,  on  the  floor  of  a 
church,  to  cut  out  the  eyes  of  their  Pontiff;  and  the 
record  tells  us  that  the  Romans  were  so  little  moved 
by  the  charges  brought  against  him  that  they  left  it 
to  a  provincial  noble  to  rescue  Leo  IH.  Grave  charges 
were  also  made  against  his  successor,  Stephen  V.,  and 
Charlemagne  came  to  Rome  to  judge  him.  He  politely 
acquitted  Stephen,  and,  on  that  historic  Christmas 
morning  of  the  year  800,  he  was  surprised  and  discon- 
certed by  the  Pope  suddenly  producing  an  imperial 
crown  and  placing  it  on  his  head. 

It  is  well  known  that  Charlemagne  regarded  this 
coronation  with  distrust.  The  gifts  of  the  Blessed 
Peter  had  a  way  of  conferring  more  power  on  the  giver 
than  on  the  receiver.  In  point  of  fact,  when  the  strong 
hand  of  the  first  Emperor  was  removed,  and  a  brood  of 
weaker  men  came  to  squabble  over  the  imperial  heri- 
tage, Rome  gained   considerably.     The   kingdoms   of 

lOI 


102     Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

France,  Germany,  and  Italy  were  carved  out  of  the 
Empire,  but  the  spiritual  realm  was  not  exposed  to  any 
hereditary  division.  It  merely  awaited  the  coming  of 
another  strong  man  to  make  clear  its  power,  and  this 
revelation  was  reserved  for  Nicholas  I.  Of  the  eight 
Popes  who  preceded  him,  only  one,  Leo  IV.,  made  a 
reputable  mark  on  history,  and  that  rather  as  a  strong 
and  honest  than  as  a  spiritual  personality.  Most  of 
them  were,  like  most  of  the  Popes,  men  of  mediocre 
but  respectable  character.  There  is,  however,  some 
degeneration  in  the  Papal  calendar — which  is,  until 
the  end  of  the  ninth  century,  a  more  edifying  record 
than  many  imagine — since  two  out  of  the  eight  remain 
under  suspicion  of  grave  misconduct,  and  one  was  a 
gouty  gourmand;  while  occasional  outbreaks  of  a  vio- 
lence not  far  removed  from  barbarism  betray  that  the 
new  prosperity  is  not  elevating  the  character  of  the 
Romans. 

Nicholas,  whose  life  in  the  Liber  Pojitificalis  was 
probably  written  by  his  accomplished  librarian  Anastas- 
ius,  was  the  son  of  a  cultivated  Roman  notary,  and 
was  carefully  trained  in  letters.  These  official  pane- 
gyrics will  not,  however,  impress  the  serious  historian. 
The  Pope's  letters  show  that  the  extent  of  his  profane 
culture  was  merely  a  stricter  observance  of  the  ele- 
mentary rules  of  grammar  than  some  of  his  predecessors 
had  displayed.  In  853,  a  few  years  before  Nicholas 
began  his  Pontificate,  Leo  IV.  had  ordered  the  opening 
of  schools  in  each  of  the  twenty  parishes  of  Rome,  but 
he  complained  that  teachers  of  the  liberal  arts  were  rare. 
The  instruction  given  was  mainly  religious,  and  it 
seems  that  on  the  ecclesiastical  side  the  Pope's  culture 
was  considerable.  He  had  grown  up  in  the  devout 
service  of  the  Church,  and  successive  Popes  had  pro- 


Nicholas  1.  and  the  False  Decretals    103 

moted  and  loved  him;  so  that,  when  Benedict  III. 
died,  Nicholas  was  unanimously  chosen  to  succeed  him. 
In  the  presence  of  the  Emperor,  Louis  II,,  Nicholas, 
who  had  to  be  dragged  from  a  hiding-place  in  St. 
Peter's,  was,  on  Sunday,  April  24th,  consecrated  and 
conducted  by  joyous  crowds  along  the  laurel-crowned 
streets  to  the  Lateran.  Two  days  afterwards  the 
Emperor  entertained  him  at  dinner,  and  they  were 
very  cordial.  When  Louis  set  out  for  France,  Nicholas 
followed  and  had  another  festive  dinner  with  him  at  his 
first  camp.  Then  the  Pope,  after  kissing  and  embra- 
cing the  Emperor,  returned  to  the  Lateran  and  gravely 
mounted  the  Papal  throne. 

Within  the  next  few  years  men  learned  that  a  new 
type  of  Pontiff  ruled  the  Church,  or  the  world.  Nicho- 
las I.  conceived  himself,  in  deepest  sincerity,  to  be  the 
representative  of  God  on  earth:  fancied  himself  sitting 
on  a  throne  so  elevated  that  from  its  level  all  men — 
kings  and  beggars,  patriarchs  and  monks — were  of  the 
same  size.  He  believed  that  he  was  responsible  to 
God  for  every  immoral  or  irreligious  movement  in 
"every  part  of  the  world,"  as  he  often  said.  He  was 
convinced  that  his  words  were  "divinely  inspired,"'  and 
that  disobedience  to  him  was  disobedience  to  God. 
He  was,  by  divine  appointment,  "prince  over  all  the 
earth."  ^  Kings  received  their  swords  from  him,^  and 
were  as  humbly  subject  as  their  serfs  were  to  his  moral 
and  religious  authority.  The  most  powerful  prelates 
must  obey  his  orders  at  once  or  be  deposed.-*  Not  a 
council  must  be  held  in  Europe  without  his  approval  s : 
not  a  church  must  be  built  "without  the  commands  of 

'  Ep.,  Ixxxiii.,  xcii.,  and  cviii.  »  Ep.,  Ixv. 

3  Ep.,  Ixxix.  ••  Ep.,  vi.  s  Ep.,  xii. 


104    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

the  Pope"':  not  a  book  of  any  importance  must  be 
published  without  his  authorization.^  Nicholas  was 
conscientious  in  small  duties:  he  kept  lists  of  the  blind 
and  ailing  poor  to  whom  food  had  to  be  sent.  But  his 
great  feature  was  his  treatment  of  the  mighty.  He 
lived  on  a  cloud-wrapt  height,  sending  out  the  thun- 
ders of  excommunication,  on  gentle  and  simple,  as  no 
Pope  had  ever  dared  to  do  before.  He  left  to  Louis 
the  petty  position  of  "emperor  of  men's  bodies": 
he  occupied  the  position  of  Jupiter.  Europe  was  cowed 
by  the  impersonal  arrogance  of  his  language.  He  was 
the  greatest  maker  of  the  mediaeval  Papacy.^ 

Nicholas  did  a  greater  work  than  Hildebrand  be- 
cause the  times  permitted  him.  He  had  to  deal  with 
the  degenerate  descendants  of  Charlemagne,  not  with 
a  powerful  ruler.  On  the  other  hand,  court-favour  and 
prosperity  had  made  the  leading  prelates  a  feudal 
aristocracy,  often  arrogant  and  avaricious;  and  the 
monks  they  threatened  and  the  priests  they  oppressed 
turned  eagerly  from  them  to  the  Roman  court  of  appeal. 
Princes  chafed  at  the  independence  of  their  spiritual 
vassals,  and  would  depose  them :  bishops  chafed  at  the 
interference  of  their  suzerains,  and  would  assert  the 
independence  of  the  Church.  A  thousand  voices  ap- 
pealed to  Rome.  The  fact  that  the  Forged  Decretals 
were  not  made  at  Rome  or  in  the  interest  of  Rome,  but 
by  the  provincial  clergy  in  their  own  interest,  gives  us  the 
measure  of  the  age.  And  the  fact  that  such  forgeries 
were  at  once  received  reminds  us  of  another  favourable 
circumstance :  the  dense  ignorance  of  the  time.     There 

'  Ep.,  cxxxv.  *  Ep.,  cxv. 

3  An  excellent  analysis  of  his  ideas  is  given  in  Dr.  A.  Greinacher's 
Die  Anschaungen  des  Papstcs  Nikolaus  I.  uber  das  Verhaltniss  von  Stoat 
und  Kirche  (1909). 


Nicholas  I.  and  the  False  Decretals    105 

was  culture  in  places,  as  the  contemporary  work  of 
Scotus  Erigena  reminds  us,  but  to  check  these  Papal 
claims  one  needed  a  knowledge  of  history,  and  the 
true  story  of  the  development  of  the  Church  and  the 
Papacy,  as  we  know  it,  was  buried  under  a  dense  growth 
of  legends  and  forgeries.  Hence  the  dogmatic  Papal 
conception,  partly  based  on  such  documents  as  the 
Donation  of  Constantine  and  the  Forged  Decretals,  sank 
almost  unchallenged  into  the  mind  of  Europe,  and  the 
Pope  was  now  enabled  to  dispense  with  the  swords  of 
princes  and  rely  on  religious  threats.  The  letters  of 
Nicholas  splutter  anathemas  from  beginning  to  end. 

His  first  extant  letter  gives  the  Archbishop  of  Sens 
and  his  colleagues  a  stern  lesson  on  the  prestige  of  the 
Papacy,  as  understood  by  Nicholas  I.  The  sixth  letter 
peremptorily  orders  the  great  Hincmar  of  Rheims  and 
his  colleagues,  in  language  of  the  simplest  arrogance, 
to  excommunicate  at  once,  as  he  had  directed,  the 
Countess  Ingeltrude.  But  within  a  few  years  Nicholas 
was  involved  in  such  a  mesh  of  correspondence  with 
offending  princes  and  prelates  that  we  must  consider 
the  chief  causes  in  succession. 

The  Eastern  Empire  was  then  ruled  by  Michael  the 
Drunkard,  his  mistress  Eudocia,  and  the  Emperor's 
tutor  in  vice,  his  uncle  Bardas.  This  pretty  trio  de- 
posed the  saintly  Ignatius  from  the  See  of  Constanti- 
nople, and  put  in  his  place  the  imperial  secretary  Photius, 
one  of  the  most  accomplished  scholars  and  least  scru- 
pulous courtiers  of  the  East.  The  better  clergy  pro- 
tested, and  the  court  sought  the, support  of  the  Pope. 
A  glittering  captain  of  the  guards  presented  himself  at 
Rome  with  a  set  of  jewelled  altar-vessels  and,  no  doubt, 
a  diplomatic  account  of  the  situation.  But  Nicholas 
at  once  rebuked  the  Emperor  for  his  "presumptuous 


io6    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

temerity"  in  deposing  Ignatius  without  the  assent  of 
Rome,  and  sent  legates  to  inquire  into  the  matter; 
and  he  took  prompt  occasion  to  demand  the  restoration 
of  Papal  rights  and  patrimonies  in  the  East.'  The 
Eastern  court  must  have  gasped  at  this  language. 
However,  the  Pope's  legates  were  suborned,  and  a 
Council  held  at  Constantinople  (May,  86 1)  confirmed 
the  election  of  Photius.  Nicholas  was  not  satisfied,^ 
and  at  length  he  heard  the  truth  from  Ignatius.  He 
called  a  Council  at  Rome,  ordered  Michael  to  restore 
Ignatius,^  and  threatened  Photius  with  all  the  ana- 
themas in  the  Papal  arsenal  if  he  did  not  retire. 

Photius  kept  his  place,  and  in  865  Michael  wrote  an 
abusive  and  threatening  letter  to  the  Pope.  We  gather 
from  the  Pope's  reply  that  it  expressed  the  greatest 
contempt  and  threatened  that  Greek  troops  would 
come  and  make  an  end  of  them  all.  The  lengthy  reply 
of  Nicholas  has  some  fine  passages,  but  it  argues  too 
much  where  silence  would  have  been  more  dignified, 
and  is  at  times  petty  and  petulant  in  hurling  back  the 
Emperor's  foolish  insults.  '*  It  received  no  answer,  and 
in  November,  866,  Nicholas  wrote  again.  He  was,  he 
said,  sending  legates  to  judge  the  case  at  Constantinople 
and  would  remind  Michael  of  the  terrible  things  in 
store  for  those  who  disobeyed  him;  as  to  that  abusive 
letter,  he  says,  if  Michael  does  not  take  it  back,  he 
will  "commit  it  to  eternal  perdition,  in  a  great  fire,  and 
so  bring  the  Emperor  into  contempt  with  all  nations." 
He  also  sent  a  very  threatening  letter  to  Photius.  But 
the  letters  never  reached  Constantinople.  The  legates 
were  turned  back  at  the  frontier,  and  Photius  went  on 


'  Ep.,  iv.  '  Ep.,  xii.  and  xiii. 

^Ep.jdvi.  *  Ep.,  Ixxxvi.  s  Ep.,  xcviii. 


Nicholas  I.  and  the  False  Decretals    107 

to  publish  a  virulent  tirade  on  the  errors  and  heresies 
of  the  Latins,  This  seems  to  have  been  beyond  the 
resources  of  the  Lateran,  and  the  scholars  of  France 
were  entrusted  with  the  defence  of  the  West.  Ignatius 
was  eventually  restored,  but  Nicholas  did  not  live  to 
see  the  issue,  and  the  Eastern  Church  again  drifted  far 
away  from  the  Western. 

The  anathema  had  proved  ineffectual  in  the  East, 
but  Nicholas  had  meantime  begun  to  employ  it  with 
happier  results  in  Europe.  In  spite  of  the  Puritanism 
of  Louis  I.,  the  loose  tradition  of  Charlemagne's  court 
lingered  in  France  and  Nicholas  soon  found  it  necessary 
to  rebuke  aristocratic  sinners.  I  have  mentioned  that 
in  860  he  threatened  the  Countess  Ingeltrude  with 
excommunication  if  she  did  not  abandon  her  gay  vaga- 
bondage and  return  to  her  husband,  the  Count  of 
Burgundy.  Her  son  Hucbert  had  claimed  the  atten- 
tion of  Benedict  III.,  who  tells  us  that  this  high-born 
young  abbot  went  about  France  with  a  lively  troop 
of  actresses  and  courtesans,  corrupted  the  most  vener- 
able nunneries,  and  filled  monasteries  with  his  hawks 
and  dogs  and  licentious  ladies.^  Hucbert's  sister, 
Theutberga,  was  wedded  to  Lothair  of  Lorraine,  brother 
of  the  Emperor  Louis,  who  accused  her  of  incest  with 
Hucbert  before  her  marriage  and  proposed  to  divorce 
her  and  marry  his  fascinating  mistress  Waldrada. 
Whether  she  was  guilty  or  not  we  cannot  tell,  as  no 
proper  trial  was  ever  held.  She  claimed  the  hot-water 
ordeal,  and  her  champion  was  unscathed.  Then 
Lothair  won  the  support  of  the  chief  prelates  of  his 
kingdom,  and  they  obtained  or  extorted  from  her  a 
confession  of  guilt.  They  committed  her  to  a  nunnery 
and,  in  862,  granted  Lothair  a  divorce. 

'  Ep.,  n. 


io8    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Theutberga  appealed  to  Rome,  and  Nicholas  ordered 
that  a  general  synod  should  meet  at  Metz.  In  his  most 
lordly  manner  the  Pope  directed  Charles  the  Bald  and 
Loms  of  Germany  (imcles  of  Lothair)  to  send  bishops 
to  this  synod,  but  they  left  the  field  to  their  nephew  and, 
as  he  bribed  the  Pope's  legates,  he  secured  a  confirmation 
of  the  divorce  (Jiine,  863).  Nicholas  set  his  lips  with 
more  than  their  usual  sternness  when  the  archbishops  of 
Cologne  and  Treves  arrived  with  this  decision.  Sum- 
moning his  own  bishops  to  a  council,  he  bluntly  de- 
scribed the  Metz  synod  as  "a  brothel,"  annulled  its 
decision,  and  excommunicated  the  two  archbishops. 
In  language  more  imperious  than  any  that  had  yet 
issued  from  the  Lateran,  he  declared  that  this  was  the 
decision  of  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  and  any  man — he  seems 
to  refer  pointedly  to  the  royal  families — who  ventured 
to  dissent  from  this  or  any  other  Papal  pronouncement 
would  incur  the  direst  anathemas. 

Giinther,  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  fled  in  anger  to 
the  court  of  the  Emperor,  and  before  long  Louis  was 
marching  on  Rome  at  the  head  of  his  troops.^  It  was 
a  critical  moment  for  the  Papal  conception.  Nicholas 
ordered  fasts  and  processions,  and  one  of  these  proces- 
sions, headed  by  the  large  gold  crucifix  which  was  be- 
lieved to  contain  a  part  of  the  true  cross,  went  out  to 
St.  Peter's,  near  which  the  imperial  troops  were  en- 
camped. To  the  horror  of  the  Romans,  the  soldiers 
fell  on  the  procession  with  their  swords,  and  flung  the 
precious  cross  into  the  mud.  Nicholas  crossed  the 
river  secretly  and  remained  in  prayer  in  St.  Peter's, 
for  forty-eight  hours,  without  food.  This  was  the 
world's  reply  to  his  first  tremendous  assertion  of  author- 

•  The  best  account  is  in  the  Annals  of  St.  Berlin,  in  the  Monumenta 
CcnnanicB  Hislorica,  vol.  i. 


Nicholas  I.  and  the  False  Decretals    109 

ity,  and  the  history  of  Europe  might  have  been  altered 
if  the  imperial  sword  had  on  that  occasion  prevailed 
over  his  spiritual  threats.  But  the  Papacy  was  saved 
by  one  of  those  accidents  which  so  deeply  impressed 
the  mediaeval  imagination.  The  man  who  had  insulted 
the  cross  died  suddenly,  and  Louis  himself  became 
seriously  ill.  The  Empress  hurried  to  the  Pope,  and 
in  a  short  time  the  troops  were  marching  northward. 
From  that  day  anathema  becomes  a  mighty  weapon 
in  the  hands  of  the  Popes. 

Archbishop  Giinther  was  not  so  easily  intimidated. 
He  wrote  a  fierce  diatribe  against  Nicholas — this  new 
"emperor  of  the  whole  world," — had  a  copy  flung  upon 
the  tomb  of  the  apostle,  and  departed  for  Lorraine. 
But  Nicholas  now  knew  his  power.  He  scolded  Charles 
and  Louis  like  lackeys  for  not  sending  bishops  to  Metz ; 
they  held  their  swords  from  St,  Peter,  and  they  must 
listen  to  a  Pope  who  speaks  from  direct  divine  revela- 
tion.' The  two  kings  persuaded  Lothair  to  disown 
Giinther  and  submit,  and  the  legate  Arsenius  was  sent 
to  France.  This  legate  Arsenius,  an  arrogant  and 
worldly  Bishop,  whose  career  ended  in  grave  scandal, 
delivered  the  Pope's  orders  at  the  courts  of  Charles, 
Louis,  and  Lothair  with  a  haughtiness  even  greater  and 
less  respectable  than  that  of  Nicholas.  He  was  obeyed 
at  once,  says  Hincmar,  who  shudders  at  the  facile 
scattering  of  anathemas.^  He  then  conducted  Theut- 
berga  to  her  husband  and  made  the  prince  and  his  nobles 
swear  on  the  most  sacred  relics  to  respect  her;  and,  after 
a  final  shower  of  "unheard-of  maledictions"  (says Hinc- 
mar), he  set  out  for  Rome  with  the  siren  Waldrada. 

'  Ep.,  Ixxxiii. 

'  It  is,  at  least,  generally  believed  that  Hincmar  wrote  this  part  of 
the  Bertinian  Annals. 


no    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

There  is  grave  reason  to  believe  that  the  arrogant 
Bishop  was  bribed,  or  otherwise  corrupted,  by  Wal- 
drada.  She  "escaped"  in  northern  Italy  and  returned 
to  Lorraine;  and  the  unhappy  Theutberga  now  ap- 
pealed to  Nicholas  to  release  her  and  let  Lothair  marry 
Waldrada.  To  this  noble  appeal  Nicholas  could  have 
but  one  answer;  for  the  claims  of  the  human  heart  he 
had  no  ear.  She  must  remain  in  her  husband's  bed 
if  it  means  martyrdom.  Lothair  shall  never  marry 
that  "whore"  even  if  Theutberga  dies.  There  death 
compelled  Nicholas  to  leave  the  romantic  situation  of 
Lothair;  and  one  reads,  almost  with  a  smile,  that  his 
successor,  Hadrian  IL,  accepted  Lothair's  sworn  de- 
claration (supported  by  many  presents)  that  he  had 
had  no  relations  with  Waldrada  since  the  prohibition, 
and  admitted  him  and  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne  to 
the  holy  table.  One  must  respect  the  great  Pope's 
insistence  on  w^hat  he  believed  to  be  a  divine  ordination, 
but  the  historians  who  represent  him  as  the  champion 
of  the  human  rights  of  an  injured  woman  forget  the 
final  martyrdom  of  Theutberga. 

One  seems  at  first  to  find  a  more  human  note  in  the 
Pope's  indulgence  toward  Baldwin  of  Flanders.  Judith, 
daughter  of  Charles  the  Bald,  had  been  put  under  re- 
straint by  her  father  for -misconduct,  and  in  860  she 
eloped  with  the  young  Count  of  Flanders.  Baldwin 
asked  the  Pope's  mediation,  and  he  won  from  Charles 
forgiveness  for  the  erring  couple.  If,  however,  one 
reads  his  letter  (xxii.)  carefully,  one  finds  no  ground 
for  the  claim  that  he  was  "tender  toward  the  penitent." 
He  plainly  says  that  Baldwin  had  threatened  to  throw 
in  his  lot  with  the  Norman  pirates  if  Charles  persists 
in  his  threat  of  vengeance.  There  is  a  nearer  approach 
to  sentiment  in  the  Pope's  effort  to  secure  the  property 


Nicholas  I.  and  the  False  Decretals    in 

of  the  widowed  Helletrude,  which  had  been  seized  by 
Lothair;  but  we  do  not  know  the  issue  of  his  interven- 
tion in  that  case. 

If  the  new  language  of  the  Papacy  fell  with  uncertain 
effect  upon  the  ears  of  kings  and  sinners,  it  did  at  least 
win  a  triumph  among  the  great  prelates  of  Europe  and 
raised  the  Roman  See  immeasurably  above  them. 
The  conflict  with  Hincmar  of  Rheims  was  the  most 
notable  and  successful  struggle  in  which  Nicholas 
engaged.  Hincmar  was  the  most  distinguished  and 
one  of  the  more  worthy  of  the  prelate-nobles  who  had 
risen  to  wealth  and  power  with  the  settlement  of  Europe. 
He  was  a  man  of  imperious  temper  and  great  ability, 
yet  of  sincere  religious  feeling  and  concern  for  the 
prestige  of  the  Gallic  Church.  One  of  his  suffragans, 
Rothrad  of  Soissons,  incurred  his  dislike,  and,  when  this 
Bishop  suspended  one  of  his  priests,  who  had  been 
caught  in  adultery  and  ignominiously  mutilated  by 
his  parishioners,  Hincmar  reinstated  the  man.  When 
Rothrad  not  unnaturally  remonstrated,  he  was  deposed 
by  Hincmar  and  a  jury  of  five  bishops, '  and  he  appealed 
to  Rome.  In  order  to  frustrate  this  appeal,  Hincmar 
took  a  weak  and  improper  advantage  of  a  letter  written 
by  Rothrad,  saying  that  in  this  letter  the  Bishop  aban- 
doned his  appeal,  and  induced  the  King  to  forbid  him 
to  go  to  Rome.  Then,  in  a  synod  which  met  at  Soissons, 
he  had  the  deposition  confirmed  and  Rothrad  sentenced 
to  live  in  a  monastery. 

Nicholas  at  once,  in  863,  wrote  a  severe  letter  to 
Hincmar,  harshly  rebuking  him  for  his  want  of  respect 
for  the  Roman  See  and  claiming  that  the  case  ought  to 
have  been  remitted  to  Rome  whether  Rothrad  had 
appealed  or  no.^     In  a  second  letter  written  shortly 

'  Bertinian  Annals,  year  865.  '  Ep.,  xxxiii. 


112     Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

afterwards,  he  threatened  to  depose  Hincmar  if  he  did 
not  obey,  or  come  to  justify  his  conduct  at  Rome,  within 
thirty  days. '  He  wrote  in  the  same  harshly  autocratic 
language  to  the  King  and  to  the  other  French  prelates ; 
if  his  orders  were  not  at  once  obeyed,  he  would  punish 
everybody  severely.  The  greatest  prelate-noble  in 
Europe  and  the  King  himself  submitted  almost  without 
a  struggle,  and  Rothrad  went  to  Rome.  Hincmar,  it 
is  true,  disdained  to  send  witnesses  and  attempted  in 
his  letter  to  defend  his  action,  but  the  Pope  went  on  his 
way  as  calmly  and  inexorably  as  if  he  were  dealing  with 
a  few  refractory  monks.  On  Christmas  Eve,  864,  he 
preached  a  sermon  on  the  case  and  announced  that  he 
had  reinstated  Rothrad.  The  legate  Arsenius  was 
then  about  to  set  out  for  France  on  the  mission  I  have 
already  described,  and  he  took  Rothrad  with  him  to  the 
court  of  Charles.  He  took  also  a  letter  to  Hincmar 
which  began:  "If  thou  hadst  any  respect  for  the  canons 
of  the  Fathers  or  the  Apostolic  See,  thou  wouldst  not 
have  attempted  to  depose  Rothrad  without  our  know- 
ledge." I  will  consider  later  this  covert  reference  to 
the  Forged  Decretals.  Rothrad  was  reinstated ;  and  the 
language  in  which  the  Bertinian  Annals  describe  the 
Pope's  procedure  shows  the  bitter  resentment  it  pro- 
voked in  France. 

An  incident  that  occurred  in  the  course  of  the  dispute 
shows — if  proof  were  necessary — that  Nicholas  acted 
on  a  sincere  conviction  of  right.  In  863  Lothair  ap- 
pointed Archbishop  Giinther's  brother,  Hildwin,  to  the 
See  of  Cambrai,  and  Hincmar  rightly  protested  that 
the  man  was  unworthy.  He  appealed  to  Nicholas, 
and,  although  his  appeal  reached  the  Pope  at  a  time 
when  he  was  threatening  to  depose  Hincmar,  and  that 

'  Ep.,  xxxiv. 


Nicholas  I.  and  the  False  Decretals    113 

prelate  still  evaded  his  orders,  Nicholas  at  once  dis- 
charged a  shower  of  his  menacing  letters'  in  support  of 
Hincmar  and  did  not  rest  until  Lothair  abandoned 
Hildwin.  Warped  as  it  was,  at  times,  by  a  too  exalted 
conception  of  the  authority  of  his  See,  Nicholas  had, 
nevertheless,  a  rigid  sentiment  of  justice,  and  it  was 
his  supreme  aim  to  make  that  anarchic  world  bow  to 
moral  no  less  than  ecclesiastical  law. 

He  had  not  yet  reached  the  end  of  his  conflict  with 
the  great  representative  of  the  prelate -nobles.  Hinc- 
mar's  predecessor,  Ebbo,  had  conferred  orders  after 
he  had  been  deposed,  and  a  council  held  at  Soissons  in 
853  had  suspended  these  clerics  from  the  exercise  of 
their  fimctions.  Benedict  III.  and  Nicholas  himself 
had  expressed  a  qualified  approval  of  this  council,  but 
the  Forged  Decretals  were  now  circulating  in  France,  and 
one  of  the  suspended  clerics,  Wulfad, — possibly  en- 
couraged by  the  success  of  Rothrad, — appealed  to 
Rome.  Once  more  Nicholas  curtly  ordered  Hincmar 
either  to  reinstate  the  clerics  or  to  summon  a  new  coun- 
cil, to  which  the  Pope  would  send  legates,  at  Soissons. 
The  coimcil  was  held,  and  the  French  bishops  endeav- 
oured by  means  of  a  compromise  to  save  their  own 
dignity  yet  avoid  a  quarrel:  they  decided  to  reinstate 
the  clerics  as  an  act  of  grace.  This  evasion  drew  from 
the  Pope  some  of  the  sorriest  letters  in  his  register. 
Not  only  in  a  most  harsh  and  offensive  letter  to  the 
Archbishop,^  but  even  in  a  letter  to  the  bishops, ^  he 
accused  Hincmar  of  fraud,  insisted  that  the  acta  of  the 
earlier  Soissons  council  had  been  submitted  in  a  dis- 
honest form  to  his  "  divinely  inspired"  predecessor  and 
himself,  and,  on  the  pretext  that  Hincmar  was  wearing 
his  pallium  on  improper  occasions,  threatened  to  punish 

'  XLL,  xlii.,  and  xliii.  '  CVIII.  3  CVII. 


114    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

his  "pride"  and  "vainglory"  by  a  withdrawal  of  that 
distinction.  He  ordered  them  to  hold  a  new  council. 
Nicholas  died  before  the  report  of  this  council  reached 
Rome,  and  his  indulgent  successor  exculpated  Hincmar. 
But  the  meekness  with  which  those  terrible  letters 
were  received  is  a  measure  of  the  advance  of  the  Papacy. 
A  story  that  is  told  at  length  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis 
affords  another  instance  of  this  assertion  of  spiritual 
autocracy  and  its  encouragement  by  appeals  from  the 
provinces.  The  Pope  was  informed  that  John  of 
Ravenna  abused  his  power;  bishops  complained  that 
he  quartered  himself  and  his  expensive  retinue  on  them 
for  unreasonable  periods  and  made  other  exacting  de- 
mands. When  John  received  letters  of  remonstrance 
and  legates  from  Rome,  he  forbade  his  subjects  to 
appeal  to  the  Pope,  and  strengthened  his  authority  by 
falsifying  the  documents  in  his  archives:  a  crime  at 
which  the  Roman  Anastasius  expresses  the  most  naive 
surprise  and  indignation.  When  Nicholas  summoned 
him  to  appear  before  a  Roman  synod,  John  "boasted" 
that  he  was  not  subject  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  and, 
when  the  synod  excommunicated  him,  he  appealed  to 
the  Emperor.  He  then  went,  with  the  support  of 
imperial  legates,  to  beard  Nicholas  in  the  Lateran,  but 
the  Pope  astutely  detached  the  legates  from  him  and 
he  returned  in  concern  to  Ravenna.  In  this  case  the 
prelate  was  unpopular  and  unjust,  so  that  Nicholas 
had  a  good  local  base  for  his  authority.  He  went  in 
person  to  Ravenna,  and  before  long  men  pointed  the 
finger  of  scorn  or  of  horror  at  their  proud  Archbishop 
as  he  rode  through  the  streets.  The  Emperor  aban- 
doned him,  and  in  a  few  months  we  find  John  at  Rome, 
humbly  submitting  to  the  rod,  placing  the  written 
record  of  his  penitence  on  the  holy  sandals  of  the  Saviour. 


Nicholas  I.  and  the  False  Decretals    115 

A  remarkable  extension  of  this  authority  is  attempted 
in  a  letter  which  Nicholas  addressed  to  King  Charles 
in  867.  The  dispute  about  predestination  which  then 
agitated  clerical  Europe,  and  gave  some  fallacious 
promise  of  a  revival  of  intellect,  had  been  submitted 
to  Nicholas  in  the  early  days  of  his  Pontificate.  Nicho- 
las was,  like  all  the  great  Popes,  a  statesman  and  canon- 
ist, not  a  theologian.  He  prudently  remained  silent, 
and  let  Franks  and  Germans  belabour  each  other  with 
theological  epithets.  When,  however,  he  heard  that 
Charles  had  invited  the  famous  John  Scotus  Erigena, 
the  subtlest  thinker  of  the  early  Middle  Ages,  to  trans- 
late a  supposed  work  of  Denis  the  Areopagite  {De 
Divinis  Nominibus),  he  reproved  the  King  for  issuing 
so  important  a  book  without  having  submitted  it  to 
Rome.^  We  do  not  find  that  Charles  took  any  notice 
of  his  claim  of  censorship,  or  sent  him  a  copy  of  the 
book.  It  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  attitude  of  Rome 
that  a  thinker  like  Scotus  Erigena,  in  whose  works  we 
plainly  recognize  the  most  advanced  heresy  that  arose 
in  Europe  before  the  eighteenth  century,  incurred  so 
little  censure.  Nicholas  merely  complains  that  the 
learned  Irishman  is  rumoured  to  be  not  entirely  sound 
in  theology. 

Still  bolder  is  the  claim  made  in  a  letter  in  which 
Nicholas  sought  to  control  the  conversion  of  the  Danes. 
No  new  national  Church  must  be  founded  without  his 
authority,  he  says,  since  "according  to  the  sacred  de- 
crees even  a  new  basilica  cannot  be  built  without  the 
command  of  the  Pope.  "^  In  this  he  outran  not  only 
the  genuine,  but  the  forged.  Decretals.  He  had  in 
mind,  no  doubt,  a  decree  of  Gelasius  on  the  subject  of 
church-building,  but  this  merely  forbade  the  erection 

'  Ep.,  cxv.  *  Ep.,  cxxxv. 


ii6    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

of  a  church,  without  authority,  in  the  Roman  diocese 
itself.  At  the  other  extremity  of  Europe  Nicholas 
made  elaborate  efforts  to  bring  the  Bulgarians  under 
his  authority.  He  sent  legates  to  King  Boris,  and 
wrote  a  very  long  and  curious  reply  to  a  large  number 
of  questions — ranging  from  the  most  exalted  points  of 
faith  to  the  wearing  of  trousers  by  women — which  the 
Bulgarians  submitted  to  him.  He  did  not  live  to  see 
the  relapse  of  the  deceitful  and  ambitious  Slavs. 

These  are  the  outstanding  features  of  the  voluminous 
correspondence  of  Nicholas  the  Great.  They  bring  be- 
fore us  the  portrait  of  a  man  who  is  raised  above  the 
disorder  of  his  time,  not  so  much  by  strength  of  person- 
ality as  by  the  exaltation  of  his  sacerdotal  creed.  In 
a  more  orderly  Christendom  Nicholas  might  have 
seemed  an  exemplary  and  not  greatly  distinguished 
bishop,  but  chaos  has  ever  been  the  native  element  of 
such  creative  genius  as  he  possessed.  Since  all  men 
now  bowed  in  theory  to  the  Christian  ideal,  their  very 
disorders  lent  authority  to  the  Pope's  anathemas.  He 
hears  that  a  set  of  young  bishops  are  devoted  to  himt- 
ing  and  even  to  less  reputable  pastimes,  and  his  scorn 
is  irresistible.'  He  hears  that  the  sons  of  Charles  the 
Bald  have  quarrelled  with  their  royal  father,  and, 
though  they  are  now  reconciled,  "we  direct  that  you 
present  yourselves  humbly  at  a  synod  to  be  held  in  a 
place  appointed  by  us,  to  which  we  will  send  legates 
of  the  apostoHc  authority."  "  He  has  little  time  or 
inclination  for  the  material  decoration  of  Rome.  He 
restores  St.  Peter's  and  the  Trajan  aqueduct;  he  or- 
ganizes the  distribution  of  charity;  but  his  life-work 
is  the  consolidation  of  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the 

>  Ep.,  cxxvii.  '  ^P-^  xxxix. 


Nicholas  I.  and  the  False  Decretals    117 

Popes.  He  is,  pre-eminently,  the  smiter  of  the  power- 
ful; and,  in  smiting  them,  he  strengthens  the  Papal 
arm.  Fortunately  for  him  and  the  Papacy,  he  has  to 
deal  with  a  degenerate,  ignorant,  and  superstitious 
generation :  the  night  of  the  Dark  Age  is  drawing  in — a 
night  which  is  not  disproved  by  showing,  as  Maitland 
does,  that  there  was  a  little  lamp  here  and  there.  And 
when  we  contemplate  that  world  of  murder,  incest, 
rape,  spoliation,  and  monastic  and  priestly  corruption 
which  is  reflected  in  the  Pope's  letters,  we  feel  that  it 
was  well  for  Europe  to  have  such  a  master. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  do  assuredly  find  Nicholas, 
and  each  succeeding  great  Pope,  yielding  to  that  most 
natural  temptation  of  the  moralist  and  priest  in  face 
of  grave  disorder — acting  on  the  unformulated  prin- 
ciple that  the  end  sanctifies  the  means.  The  question 
whether  Nicholas  relied  on  the  Forged  Decretals  has 
now  been  so  fully  discussed  that  it  is  possible  to  give  a 
precise  answer;  at  least  when  we  consider  certain 
passages  in  his  letters  which  have  been  overlooked. 
On  the  origin  and  spread  of  the  Decretals  I  need  only 
summarize  accepted  results. ''  The  collection  originated 
in  France  about  the  year  850,  though  it  is  still  disputed 
whether  it  was  composed  in  the  diocese  of  Tours  or 
(as  seems  more  probable)  that  of  Rheims.  It  follows 
from  this  origin  that  the  forgery  was  perpetrated,  not 
in  the  interest  of  the  Papacy,  but  of  the  bishops  and 

'  The  famous  collection  which  bears  the  name  of  Isidorus  Mercator 
contains  about  sixty  spurious  Decretals  in  the  first  part,  covering  the 
first  three  centuries,  and  about  thirty  in  the  third  part;  the  second  part 
contains  the  canons  of  councils.  The  author  makes  an  adroit  use  of 
older  documents,  and  his  work  is  largely  a  mosaic  of  genuine  fragments 
(of  Papal  letters,  chronicles,  etc.)  so  pieced  together  and  ante-dated  as  to 
father  later  developments  of  Papal  authority  on  the  earlier  Popes.  The 
best  edition  is  that  of  P.  Hinschius  (1863),  and  the  best  survey  of  recent 


ii8    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

lower  clergy,  to  whom  it  gave  the  right  of  appeal  to  a 
central  authority  against  the  (often  unjust)  sentences 
of  higher  prelates  and  the  aggression  of  lay  nobles. 
The  book,  however,  is  not  merely  concerned  with  ques- 
tions of  jurisdiction  and  appeal.  It  is  further  agreed 
that,  though  the  successor  of  Nicholas,  Hadrian  II., 
certainly  used  the  Forged  Decretals,  they  were  little 
used  by  the  Popes  before  the  middle  of  the  eleventh 
century ;  but  it  is  equally  agreed  that  they  were  of  im- 
mense service  to  the  Papacy  in  spreading  a  conviction 
of  the  antiquity  of  its  most  advanced  claims  and  in 
promoting  the  practice  of  appeal  to  it. 

The  chief  point  in  dispute  is  whether  Nicholas  knew 
and  employed  the  forgery,  and  with  this  I  may  deal 
more  fully.  The  first  letter  in  the  Pope's  Register  is  a 
reply  to  Wenilo,  Archbishop  of  Sens,  in  regard  to  the 
deposition  of  a  bishop.  Servatus  Lupus,  the  learned 
abbot  of  Ferrieres,  had  written  on  behalf  of  Wenilo 
— the  letter  is  fortunately  preserved — to  say  that  men 
were  quoting  a  certain  Decretal  of  Pope  Melchiades 
which  reserved  to  the  Papacy  the  deposition  of  bishops. ' 
This  was  evidently  a  quotation  from  the  Forged  Decre- 
tals, yet  in  his  reply  Nicholas  completely  ignores  the 
supposed  Decretal  on  which  his  opinion  was  expressly 
asked.  Whether  or  no  we  may  infer  from  this  silence 
that  Nicholas  was  ignorant  of  the  source  of  the  quota- 
tion, we  may  surely  conclude  that  so  industrious  a 

study  is  the  article  "  Pseudoisidor "  in  Herzog's  Real-Encyclopadie  fur 
Protestantische  Theologie.  There  is  a  useful  chapter  in  The  Age  oj 
Charlejnagyie  (1898),  by  C.  L.  Wells.  The  ablest  Catholic  study  of 
the  relation  of  Nicholas  to  the  collection  is  Jules  Roy's  Saint  Nicholas 
(1901).  See  also  Les  Fausses  Decretales  (1879),  of  Father  Ch.  deSmcdt. 
On  the  general  question  of  the  Pope's  use  of  spurious  documents  see 
the  able  Old  Catholic  work  of  J.  Richterich,  Papst  Nikolaus  I.  (1903). 
'  See  Ep.,  cxxx.,  of  Servatus  Lupus. 


Nicholas  I.  and  the  False  Decretals   119 

canonist  would  make  immediate  inquiries  about  this 
remarkable  document,  if  he  were  not  already  acquainted 
with  it.  Since,  however,  he  made  no  reply  to  the 
question  whether  the  deposition  of  a  bishop  was  re- 
served to  the  Papacy,  I  infer  that  he  was  unaware  of 
the  existence  of  the  Decretals ;  and  this  is  strongly  con- 
firmed by  a  letter  which  he  wrote  in  862.  He  tells 
King  Solomon  of  Brittany  that  a  bishop  may  be  de- 
posed by  twelve  bishops,  on  the  evidence  of  seventy- 
two  witnesses,  and  he  refers  to  Pope  Silvester  as  the 
authority  for  this  mythical  ordinance/  In  this  he 
relies  on  a  spurious  document,  but  a  document  not 
contained  in  the  Isidorean  collection.  The  main  point 
is  that  he  allows  the  local  deposition  of  bishops,  and 
enjoins  recourse  to  Rome  only  in  case  of  dispute.  He 
does  not  yet  seem  to  know  the  Decretals,  but,  as  Hinc- 
mar  had  used  them  in  857  (possibly  in  853),  we  can 
hardly  imagine  such  a  Pope  as  Nicholas  remaining  long 
unaware  of  the  existence  in  France  of  this  strong  foun- 
dation of  his  authority;  especially  when,  as  I  said,  his 
attention  had  been  plainly  drawn  to  it  by  Servatus 
Lupus. 

Then  came  the  case  of  Rothrad ,  ^  and  Nicholas,  as  we 
saw,  wrote  to  Hincmar  that  the  case  ought  to  have 
been  remitted  to  Rome  whether  Rothrad  had  appealed 
or  no^;  but  it  is  clear  that  he  is  speaking  of  a  vague 
duty  imposed  by  general  respect  for  the  Apostolic  See, 

'  Ep.,  XXV. 

^  It  is  not  easy  to  regard  Rothrad  as  the  author  of  the  forgery,  as  he 
was  not  deposed  until  862.  A  more  probable  source  of  origin  is  the 
group  of  clerics  ordained  by  Ebbo  and  suspended  by  Hincmar  in  853. 
Even  this  seems  too  late,  however,  as  such  a  compilation  was  not  the 
work  of  a  day.  But  it  is  very  probable  that  Rothrad  took  the  book  to 
Rome,  if  it  were  not  already  there. 

J  Ep.,  xxxiii. 


120    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

not  of  a  duty  enforced  by  canonical  obligation.  If, 
he  says,  Hincmar  were  "not  disposed"  to  send  the  case 
to  Rome  {si  id  agere  noluisses),  he  ought  at  least  to 
have  respected  Rothrad's  actual  appeal.  But  when 
we  come  to  865,  and  the  famous  letter  (Ixxv.)  which 
the  Pope  wrote  to  Hincmar  and  his  colleagues,  Nicholas 
is  quite  clear.  "Even  if,"  he  says,  "he  [Rothrad]  had 
not  appealed  to  the  Apostolic  See,  you  had  no  right  to 
run  counter  to  so  many  and  such  important  decretal 
statutes  and  depose  a  bishop  without  consulting  us."^ 
The  French  prelates  had  complained  that  such  De- 
cretals were  not  found  in  their  collection :  the  Dionysian 
collection  given  to  Charlemagne  by  Hadrian  in  774. 
It  does  not  matter,  Nicholas  replies,  whether  they 
have  them  or  not;  all  Decretals  approved  at  Rome  are 
to  be  respected.  And  he  makes  it  perfectly  clear  that 
he  is  referring,  not  to  genuine  Decretals  which  may  not 
be  in  the  Dionysian  collection,  but  to  the  Isidorean. 
They  make  use  of  these  Decretals  themselves,  he  says, 
when  it  suits  their  purpose;  we  know  that  Hincmar 
had  done  so,  and  possibly  Nicholas  had  learned  this 
from  Rothrad.  But  he  makes  it  still  plainer  that  he  is 
not  referring  to  Decretals  in  the  Roman  archives,  but 
to  the  Isidorean  forgeries,  when  he  says  that  he  is 
thinking  of  the  Decretals  of  "ancient"  (prisci)  Pon- 
tiffs, not  merely  those  of  Gregory  and  Leo;  and  he 
leaves  no  room  whatever  for  doubt  when  he  includes 
letters  written  by  the  Popes  in  "the  times  of  the  pagan 
persecutions." 

We  must  not,  however,  exaggerate  the  Pope's  reli- 
ance on  this  imposture.     M.  Roy  has  made  a  careful 

'  The  modern  writers  who  have  contended  that  these  tot  et  talia  decre- 
talia  statuta  are  not  the  Isidorean  Decretals  seem  not  to  have  read  the 
whole  letter. 


Nicholas  I.  and  the  False  Decretals   121 

analysis  of  the  letters  of  Nicholas,  and  he  maintains 
that  only  four  of  his  quotations  are  from  spurious 
Decretals:  that  three  of  these  are  not  in  the  Isidorean 
collection :  and  that  the  one  which  is  common  to  Nicho- 
las and  pseudo-Isidore  had  already  been  in  circulation 
before  the  imposture  was  published.^ 

Father  de  Smedt  further  points  out  that  Nicholas 
made  no  use  of  Isidorean  Decretals  which  would,  es- 
pecially in  his  conflict  with  Photius,  have  been  useful 
to  him,  and  that,  when  he  does  use  documents  which 
are  in  the  Isidorean  collection,  he  gives  their  genuine 
words  or  assigns  them  to  their  real  authors.  These 
are  generally  valid  claims,  but  they  do  not  conflict 
with  my  conclusion.  Nicholas  plainly  endeavoured  to 
use  the  Forged  Decretals,  but  he  had  a  learned  and  acute 
antagonist  in  Hincmar  and  he  dare  not  quote  them 
individually  or  in  their  crude  Isidorean  form.  One  is 
almost  reminded  of  the  smiles  of  Roman  augurs  when 
one  considers  these  two  great  ecclesiastical  statesmen, 
using  a  forged  document  or  watching  with  complacency 
the  use  of  it,  yet  checking  each  other  when  it  affects 
their  own  interests.  There  is  no  answer  to  Milman's 
sober  charge  that  Nicholas  saw  the  spread  of  the  work 
and  did  not  protest.  He  knew  well  the  contents  of 
the  Roman  archives — he  had  a  number  of  scribes  study- 
ing them — and  he  must  have  known  as  well  as  we  do 
that  there  were  no  genuine  Decretals  before  the  time 
of  Gelasius. 

The  analysis  made  by  M.  Roy  must  be  supplemented 
by  that  of  J.  Richterich,^  from  which  it  appears  beyond 

'  Saint  Nicholas,  Appendix  II.  (followed  by  Dr.  Mann,  vol.  iii.). 
See  also  F.  Rocquain's  La  P apatite  au  Moyen  Age  (1881).  Hefele 
(bd.  iv.,  p.  292)  admits  that  Nicholas  relied  on  the  forgery. 

»  Papst  Nikolaus  I.  (1903). 


122    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

question  that  Nicholas  made  a  very  extensive  use  of 
spurious  documents;  as  we  have  found  Roman  officials 
doing  from  the  fourth  century.  Father  de  Smedt' 
"does  not  altogether  deny"  that,  as  Hinschius  says, 
Nicholas  sometimes,  in  quoting  genuine  Decretals,  al- 
ters their  meaning  in  accordance  with  the  Isidorean. 
Roy  himself  has  to  admit  that  Nicholas  goes  far  beyond 
the  words  and  meaning  of  Gelasius  in  saying  that  no 
church  may  be  built  without  the  Pope's  permission,^ 
He  goes  equally  beyond  genuine  precedent  in  claiming 
that  no  bishop  can  be  deposed  without  his  authority; 
hitherto  there  had  been  only  the  vague  understanding 
that  "grave  cases"  were  reserved  to  the  Pope.  He 
advances  equally  beyond  precedent  in  claiming  that 
no  council  can  be  held  without  his  sanction.  Roy^ 
calls  this  "a  pseudo-Isidorean  principle,"  and  says 
that  Nicholas  nowhere  asserted  it.  But  Nicholas 
plainly  asserts  it  in  Ep.,  xii.,  and  is  just  as  plainly 
straining  a  vague  early  claim  of  Pope  Gelasius. '' 

We  must  conclude  that,  however  beneficent  may 
have  been  the  spiritual  centralization  which  Nicholas 
so  ably  elaborated,  and  however  impersonal  and  re- 
ligious his  aim  may  have  been,  he  proceeded  at  times 
on  principles  which  no  cause  can  sanctify:  principles 
which  it  was  dangerous  to  bequeath  to  less  spiritual 
successors.  He  died  in  867,  after  nine  and  a  half  years 
of  heroic  work  for  his  ideal:  a  type  of  ecclesiastical 
statesman  that  it  needs  a  peculiarly  balanced  judg- 
ment to  appreciate.  The  pleasures  and  thrills  of  the 
world  he  despised,  and  it  would  be  a  deep  injustice 
to  conceive  him  as  other  than  entirely  indifferent  to  the 
personal  prestige  of  his  position.     His  personahty  was 

•  p.  116.  '  E.PP-,  Ixxxii.  and  cxxxv. 

i  P.  131.  "  Ep.,  Ixv. 


Nicholas  I.  and  the  False  Decretals    123 

entirely  merged  in  his  office:  he  was,  indeed,  not  a  per- 
sonality, but  the  vicar  of  a  greater  personaHty.  The 
phrase  which  too  often  in  Hadrian's  letters  is  a  mere 
artifice  for  obtaining  wealth  and  power — "the  Blessed 
Peter" — was  to  him  the  expression  of  a  living  and  awful 
reality.  If  the  Papacy  did  not  tower  above  all  the 
other  thrones  in  Christendom,  the  intention  of  Christ 
was  made  void.  Nicholas  would  have  it  reaHzed.  In 
that  spirit  he  added  strength  to  the  frame  of  the  Papal 
system.  The  historian  must  do  justice  to  his  aim  and 
to  the  salutary  tendency  of  his  moral  control  of  Europe ; 
he  must  be  no  less  candid  in  denoimcing  the  sentiment 
that  the  end  justifies  the  means. 


CHAPTER  VII 

JOHN  X.   AND  THE  IRON  CENTURY 

THE  next  great  stride  in  the  development  of  the 
Papacy  is  taken  by  Gregory  VIL,  the  true  suc- 
cessor of  Nicholas  I.  and  Gregory  I.  Europe  seemed, 
indeed,  entirely  prepared  for  that  last  development  of 
the  Papal  system  which  we  connect  with  the  name  of 
Hildebrand,  and  a  student  of  its  essential  growth  may 
be  tempted  to  pass  at  once  from  the  ninth  to  the  eleventh 
century.  But  to  do  so  would  be  to  omit  one  of  the 
most  singular  phases  of  the  story  of  the  Papacy  and 
leave  in  greater  obscurity  than  ever  one  of  its  most 
interesting  problems.  How  comes  it  that  a  Century 
of  Iron,  as  Baronius  has  for  ever  branded  the  tenth 
century,  falls  between  the  work  of  Nicholas  and  the 
still  greater  work  of  Gregory?  May  we  trust  those 
modern  writers  who  contend  that  the  devout  father  of 
ecclesiastical  history  was  gravely  unjust  to  the  Papacy, 
and  that  we  may  detect  the  play  of  a  romantic  or  a 
malicious  imagination  in  the  familiar  picture  of  Theodora 
and  Marozia  controlling  the  chair  of  Peter  and  invest- 
ing their  lovers  or  sons  with  the  robes  of  the  Vicar  of 
Christ?  Some  consideration  must  be  given  to  this 
phase,  and  it  will  be  convenient  to  take  John  X.  as  its 
outstanding  and  characteristic  figure. 

I  have  already  observed  that  few  really  unworthy 

124 


John  X.  and  the  Iron  Century        125 

men  sat  in  the  chair  of  Peter  until  the  close  of  the  ninth 
century.  Among  the  hundred  Popes  who  preceded 
Nicholas  I.  there  had  been,  it  is  true,  few  men  of  com- 
manding personality,  but  there  had  been  still  less  men 
of  ignoble  character.  They  had  been,  on  the  whole, 
men  whose  real  mediocrity  is  not  obscured  by  the  ful- 
some praises  of  their  official  panegyrists,  yet,  for  the 
most  part,  men  of  blameless  life.  In  the  ninth  century 
we  see  a  gradual  deterioration.  Hadrian  II.  tries, 
with  equal  sincerity  though  less  personality,  to  play  the 
great  part  of  Nicholas,  and  it  is  from  no  fault  of  char- 
acter that  he  fails  to  coerce  princes  and  prelates.  John 
VIII.  plays  a  not  ignoble  human  part  diiring  the  calam- 
itous decade  of  his  Pontificate,  though  there  is  more 
soldierly  ardour  than  religious  idealism  in  his  defence 
of  the  Papacy.  After  him,  in  quick  succession,  come 
five  Popes  of  little-known  character,  and  then  we  have  7 
that  famous  Stephen  VI.  who  digs  the  half-putrid  body 
of  a  predecessor,  Formosus,  from  its  grave  and  treats 
it  with  appalling  outrage.  In  the  gloom  which  now 
descends  on  Rome,  we  follow  with  difficulty  the  pas- 
sionate movements  of  the  rival  parties,  but  we  know 
that  after  Formosus  there  were  nine  Popes  in  eight 
years  (896-904).  With  Sergius  III.  (904-911),  the 
Century  of  Iron  fitly  opens,  and  his  name  and  that  of 
John  X.,  who  became  Pope  in  914,  are  chiefly  associated 
with  the  names  of  Theodora  and  Marozia. 

The  general  causes  of  this  deterioration  are  easily 
assigned.  In  that  age  of  violent  character,  uncontrolled 
by  culture,  a  multiplication  of  small  princedoms  was 
sure  to  lead  to  bloody  rivalries.  To  this  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  Empire  of  Charlemagne  and  the  feebleness 
of  his  descendants  had  led,  especially  in  Italy,  where 
the  weakness  of  a  sacerdocracy — that  is  to  say,   its 


126    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

liability,  if  not  obligation,  to  use  temporal  resources 
for  religious  rather  than  military  and  civic  purposes — 
soon  became  apparent.  The  Papacy  had  the  further 
weakness  that,  being  nominally  independent  yet  unable 
to  defend  itself,  it  was  ever  on  the  watch  for  another 
Pippin — a  monarch  who  would  protect  it  and  not  govern 
it — and  it  dangled  its  tawdry  imperial  crown  before  the 
eyes  of  the  kings  of  Italy,  France,  and  Germany,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  smaller  princes  of  Italy.  Hence 
arose  the  factions  which  rent  a  degraded  Rome.  We 
must  remember,  too,  that  this  was  a  fresh  period  of 
invasion  and  devastation :  the  waves  of  Saracen  advance 
lapped  the  walls  of  Rome  from  the  south  and  the  fierce 
Hungarians  reached  it  from  the  north. 

These  general  causes  of  decay  are  substantial,  yet 
we  must  not  be  too  easily  contented  with  them.  Some 
day  a  subtler  or  more  candid  science  will  tell  the  whole 
story  of  the  making  of  the  Middle  Ages.  I  need  note 
only  that  the  disorder  existed  in  Rome,  and  often  burst 
its  bonds,  long  before  the  time  of  Stephen  VI.  Even 
under  Hadrian  I.  we  saw  relatives  and  friends  of  the 
Pope  promoted  to  high  office,  yet  in  the  end  betraying 
characters  of  revolting  brutality.  We  remember  also 
a  certain  legate  of  Nicholas  L,  Bishop  Arsenius,  who 
handled  anathemas  with  such  consummate  ease. 
This  man's  nephew  abducted  the  daughter  of  Pope 
Hadrian  II.,  and,  when  he  was  pursued,  murdered  her 
and  the  Pope's  wife.  There  was  some  taint  in  the 
blood — or  the  brain — of  this  new  Roman  aristocracy 
which  gathered  round  the  Lateran.  Under  John  VIII., 
the  strongest  successor  of  Nicholas,  they  broke  into 
appalling  disorders.  "Their  swinish  lust,"  says  one 
of  the  most  conservative  and  most  reticent  of  recent 
writers  on  the  Popes,  speaking  of  the  leading  Papal 


John  X.  and  the  Iron  Century        127 

officials  of  the  time,  "was  only  second  to  their  cruelty 
and  avarice."'  Hadrian  II.  had  the  widow  of  one  of 
these  officials  whipped  naked  through  the  streets  of 
Rome,  and  had  another  official  blinded.  Under  Stephen 
VI.  and  Sergius  III.  these  corrupt  Roman  famihes 
come  into  clearer  light,  and  the  domination  of  Theodora 
and  Marozia  is  merely  one  episode  in  this  lamentable 
development,  which  has  been  recorded  more  fully 
because  of  the  piquancy  of  this  feminine  ascendancy 
in  a  nominal  theocracy. 

The  period  with  which  we  are  concerned  really  opens 
with  Pope  Formosus,  a  not  unworthy  man,  who  looked 
for  support  to  Arnulph  of  Germany.  The  Italian 
faction,  which  looked  to  Guido  of  Spoleto  and  Adalbert 
of  Tuscany,  regarded  this  "treachery"  with  the  bit- 
terest rancour  and  imprisoned  the  Pope.  One  of  the 
leaders  of  this  section  was  the  deacon  (later  Pope) 
Sergius.  Arnulph  came  to  Rome,  and  swept  the  Tuscan- 
Spoletan  faction,  including  Sergius,  out  of  the  city. 
Formosus  died  in  896,  his  gouty  successor  followed  him 
within  a  fortnight,  and  Stephen  VI.  was  elected.  As 
soon  as  Arnulph  had  left  Rome,  the  Pope  surrendered 
to  the  Italian  faction,  and  the  Lateran  witnessed  that 
ghastly  outrage  of  the  trial  of  the  mouldering  corpse 
of  Formosus :  on  the  nominal  charge  of  having  exercised 
his  functions  after  being  deposed  and  having  passed 
from  another  bishopric  to  that  of  Rome.  There  seems 
to  be  some  lack  of  sense  of  moral  proportion  in  histori- 
ans who,  knowing  these  far  graver  things,  make  elabo- 
rate efforts  to  disprove  the  love-affairs  of  one  or  two 
Popes  of  the  period.  Three  not  unworthy  Popes  filled, 
and  soon  quitted,  the  Roman  See  after  Stephen.  The 
last  of  these,  Leo  V.,  was  dethroned  and  imprisoned 

'  Dr.  Mann,  iii.,  285. 


128    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

by  the  cardinal-priest  Christopher,  who  seized  the 
Papacy.  Sergius  and  his  friends  in  exile  now  entered 
into  correspondence  with  the  dissatisfied  Romans,  mas- 
tered the  city  with  an  army,  and  threw  Christopher 
in  turn  into  a  dungeon.  This  was  the  rise  to  power 
of  Sergius  III. ;  the  beginning  of  what  has  been  called, 
with  more  vigour  than  accuracy,  the  Pornocracy.  ^ 

With  the  weakening  of  the  Empire,  the  Roman  nobles 
had  wrested  from  the  Popes  the  political  control  of 
the  city,  and  we  gather  from  the  titles  assigned  to  them 
that  there  was  a  debased  restoration  of  the  old  repub- 
lican forms.  The  head  of  one  of  the  leading  famiHes, 
Theophylactus,  is  described  as  Master  of  the  Papal 
Wardrobe,  Master  of  the  Troops,  Consul,  and  Senator. 
His  wife,  Theodora,  called  herself  the  Senatrix:  their 
elder  and  more  famous  daughter  Marozia  is  named  the 
Patricia.  The  family  belonged,  of  course,  to  the  Tus- 
can-Spoletan  faction  which  triumphed  with  Sergius. 
Culture  had  now  fallen  so  low  at  Rome  that  there  is  no 
writer  of  the  time  able  or  willing  to  leave  us  a  portrait 
of  these  remarkable  ladies;  the  nearest  authority,  the 
monk  Benedict  of  Soracte,  is  so  far  from  artistic  feeling 
that  it  would  be  literally  impossible  to  write  a  grosser 
and  more  barbarous  Latin  than  he  does.  From  some 
documents  of  the  time  it  appears  that  there  were  ladies 
of  this  great  family  who  could  not  write  their  names,  and 
we  may  presume  that  this  was  their  common  condition. 
But  it  is  uniformly  stated  that  they  were  women  of  great 
beauty  and  ambition :  it  is  certain  that  Marozia  was  the 
mother  of  John  XI.,  and  that  she  put  him  on  the  Papal 
throne:  and  it  is  claimed  that  Sergius  was  the  father  of 
John  XL,  and  that  John  X.  was  the  lover  of  Theodora. 

'  Inaccurate  because,  however  many  lovers  Theodora  and  A^Iarozia 
may  have  had,  they  were  certainly  not  courtesans. 


John  X.  and  the  Iron  Century        129 

These  stories  of  amorous  relations  would  not  in 
themselves  deserve  a  severe  historical  inquiry,  but  they 
have  been  made  a  test  of  the  accuracy  or  inacciu^acy 
of  our  authorities.  The  older  ecclesiastical  historians 
admitted  them  without  demur.  In  the  pages  of  Baro- 
nius  Theodora  is  "that  most  powerful,  most  noble,  and 
most  shameless  whore  "  and  Sergius  is  the  lover  of 
that  "shameless  whore"  Theodora.  Pagi  and  Mansi 
reproduce  these  words,  and  they  are  complacently 
prefixed  to  the  collection  of  John's  letters  in  the  Migne 
edition.^  More  recent  writers  like  Duchesne  and 
Dr.  W.  Barry  admit  the  charge  against  Sergius;  but 
the  learned  Muratori  boldly  questioned  the  whole 
tradition,  and  various  modern  Italian  writers  have 
attempted  to  support  his  case.^ 

The  claim  that  we  have  discovered,  since  the  days 
of  Baronius,  new  documents  which  materially  alter 
the  evidence,  must  at  once  be  set  aside.  Of  the  Formo- 
sian  writers  of  the  time  whose  pamphlets  have  been 
recovered,  the  priest  Auxilius  throws  no  light  on  this 
subject  and  the  grammarian  Vulgarius  is  unreliable.  We 
have  letters  and  poems  in  which  Vulgarius  hails  Pope 
Sergius  as  "the  glory  of  the  world "  and  "the  pillar  of  all 
virtue,"  and  professes  a  profound  regard  for  the  match- 
less virtue  and  the  "immaciilate  bed"  of  Theodora.^ 

'See  Baronius,  year  912,  and  Mansi,  xviii.,  314  and  316. 

*  Barry's  Papal  Monarchy  (1902),  pp.  146  and  150.  For  criticism  of 
the  tradition  see  F.  Liverani's  study  of  John  X.  in  vol.  ii.  of  his  Opere 
(1858)  and  P.  Fedele's  "Ricerche  per  la  Storia  da  Roma  e  del  Papato 
nel  Secolo  X."  in  the  Archivi  delta  R.  Societd,  Romana  di  Storia  Patria 
(vols,  xxxiii.  and  following).  Dr.  Mann  follows  these  critics  in  his 
chapters  on  Sergius  and  John  (vol.  iv.). 

J  Published  by  E.  Dummler  in  his  Auxilius  und  Vulgarius  (1866), 
pp.  139-146.  Dr.  Mann  (iv.,  139  and  141)  thinks  it  incredible  that 
if  Theodora  were  a  vicious  woman  any  man  should  write  thus;  but 
two  pages  later  he  recollects  that  Vulgarius  has  accused  Pope  Sergius  of 

9 


130    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

The  fact  is  that  Vulgarius  had  previously  indicted 
Sergius  in  lurid  terms  and  had  been  significantly  sum- 
moned to  Rome  by  that  vigorous  Pontiff.  His  charges 
of  murder  and  outrage  then  changed  into  the  most  ful- 
some flattery,  to  which  we  cannot  pay  the  slightest 
regard.  His  earlier  charges  are  more  serious,  as,  writ- 
ing only  six  years  after  the  events,  he  appeals  to  the 
still  fresh  recollection  in  the  minds  of  the  Romans  that 
Sergius  had  had  his  two  predecessors  murdered  in 
prison. ' 

We  have  no  serious  reason  to  differ  from  Baronius. 
Liutprand,  Bishop  of  Cremona,  is  the  chief  accuser. 
As  servant  of  the  court  of  Berengar  II.  and  then  of 
Otto  I.,  he  often  visited  Rome  in  the  first  half  of  the 
tenth  century,  and  he  knew  the  city  well  during  the 
Pontificate  of  John  XI.,  the  son  of  Marozia.  He  says 
that  Theodora,  "a  shameless  whore,"  was  all-powerful 
at  Rome:  that  she  was  the  mistress  of  John  X.,  whom 
she  promoted  to  the  See  of  Ravenna  and  then  to  that 
of  Rome:  that  her  daughters  Marozia  and  Theodora 
were  more  shameless  than  she:  and  that  John  XI.  was 
the  son  of  Sergius  and  Marozia.^  Liutprand  would 
hardly  scruple  to  reproduce  gossip,  and  he  is  often 
wrong,  so  that  one  reads  him  with  caution.  Yet  his 
statement  about  Sergius  is  so  far  confirmed  that  so 
careful  a  writer  on  the  Popes  as  Duchesne  is  compelled 
to  accept  it.^ 

Benedict  of  Soracte,  a  very  meagre  and  confused 
chronicler,    gives    Marozia   a   dark   character    in   his 

n^urdcring  his  two  predecessors,  and  he  advises  us  to  place  no  rehance 
on  the  word  of  such  a  "wretched  sycophant." 

'  De  Causa  Formosiana,  c.  14. 

'  Antapodosis,  ii.,  48. 

i  In  the  notes  to  his  edition  of  the  Liber  Pontificalis. 


John  X.  and  the  Iron  Century         131 

Chronicle. '  Her  son  Alberlc  was,  he  says,  born  out  of 
wedlock:  presumably  before  she  married  the  father, 
Alberic  I.  Flodoard,  the  most  respectable  chronicler 
of  the  time,  tells  us  in  his  Annals  (year  933)  that  John 
XI.  was  the  son  of  Alarozia  and  the  brother  of  Alberic 
II.;  but  neither  there  nor  elsewhere  does  he  mention 
the  father,  and  the  omission  is  significant.  Flodoard, 
a  deeply  religious  monk,  under  personal  obligations  to 
the  Papacy,  was  not  the  man  to  repeat  scandalous 
Roman  gossip ;  yet  in  his  long  poetic  history  of  the  Pap- 
acy he  brands  Marozia  as  an  incestuous  woman  united 
to  an  adulterer,  and  he  describes  John  XL,  whom  he 
disdains,  as  so  puny  a  thing  that  we  can  scarcely  con- 
ceive him  as  a  son  of  the  vigorous  Alberic.^  Lastly, 
the  one-line  notice  of  John  XL  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis 
says  that  he  was  "the  son  of  Sergius  III."  We  do  not 
know  when  or  by  whom  this  was  written,  but  recent 
attempts  to  represent  it  as  an  echo  of  Liutprand  have 
failed.  We  must  agree  with  Duchesne  that  it  is  a 
distinct  testimony  and  "more  authoritative"  than 
that  of  Liutprand. 

I  have  analyzed  afresh  the  original  evidence  on  this 
not  very  important  point  merely  in  order  to  show  the 
futility  of  recent  attempts  to  rehabilitate  the  age  of 
John  X.  Pope  Sergius,  the  chief  ecclesiastic  of  the 
Italian  faction  to  which  John  belonged,  was  a  violent 
and  unscrupulous  man.  He  resigned  a  bishopric,  and 
returned  to  the  rank  of  deacon,  in  order  that  he  might 
have  a  better  chance  of  the  Papacy.  He  was  Anti- 
Pope  to  John  IX.  in  898,  and  was  excommunicated 
and  driven  from  Rome;  and  he  forced  his  way  back  at 
the  point  of  the  sword.     The  charge  that  he  was  respon- 

» C.  29. 

'  De  Chrisli  Triumphis  apiid  Ilaliami,  xii.,  7. 


132    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

sible  for  the  death  of  his  two  predecessors  cannot  be 
disregarded,  and  he  certainly  dealt  violently  with  his 
opponents.  The  charge  of  loose  conduct  is  not  more 
serious  than  these  things,  and  it  rests  on  strong  evidence. 

To  this  party  John  X.  belonged.  His  early  career 
is  not  very  plain,  but  he  appears  first  as  a  deacon  at 
Bologna.  He  was  chosen  to  succeed  Bishop  Peter  of 
that  city,  but,  before  he  was  consecrated,  Archbishop 
Kailo  of  Ravenna  died,  and  John  passed  to  Ravenna 
and  occupied  its  See.  Nine  years  later,  in  914,  he  was 
elected  Bishop  of  Rome.  It  was  scarcely  thirty  years 
since  his  party  had  foully  treated  the  body  of  Formosus, 
partly  on  the  charge  of  passing  from  another  bishopric 
to  that  of  Rome.  One  naturally  suspects  ambition 
in  John  and  powerful  influence  in  his  favour  at  Rome. 
We  know,  in  fact,  that  he  was  on  excellent  terms  with 
Theophylactus  and  Theodora,  ^  and  no  one  now  doubts 
that  they  secured  his  election.  We  are  therefore  not 
wholly  surprised,  considering  the  age,  when  Liutprand 
assures  us  that  he  was  a  charming  man,  and  that 
Theodora,  meeting  him  during  one  of  his  missions  to 
Rome,  conceived  a  passion  for  him. 

It  is  neither  possible  not  profitable  to  linger  over  the 
subject,  and  the  impartial  student  will  probably  neither 
assent  to  nor  dissent  from  this  imconfirmed  statement 
of  the  Bishop  of  Cremona.  Liverani  ridicules  it  on  the 
ground  that  Theodora  must  have  been  far  from  young, 
since  her  daughter  Marozia  married  Albert  of  Came- 
rino  about  the  year  915.  It  is  curious  to  find  a  native 
of  Italy,  where  girls  are  often  mature  at  twelve,  and 
were  in  the  old  days  often  mothers  at  thirteen,  raising 
such  an  objection.  Theodora  may  quite  well  have 
been  still  in  her  thirties  in  915.     I  would,  however, 

'  See  a  letter  from  him  at  Ravenna  to  them  in  Liverani,  Operc,  iv.,  7. 


John  X.  and  the  Iron  Century        133 

rather  call  attention  to  the  moral  condition  of  Europe 
at  the  time.  The  pious  Bishop  of  Verona,  Ratherius, 
gives  us  an  extraordinary  picture  of  the  life  of  some  of 
his  episcopal  colleagues/  They  rush  through  their 
mass  in  the  morning,  don  gorgeous  dresses  and  gold 
belts,  and  ride  out  to  hunt  on  horses  with  golden  bridles: 
they  return  at  night  to  rich  banquets,  with  massive 
goblets  of  good  wine,  and  dancing  girls  for  company, 
and  dice  to  follow:  and  they  retire,  too  often  with  their 
companions,  to  beds  that  are  inlaid  with  gold  and  silver 
and  spread  with  covers  and  pillows  of  silk.  Bishop 
Atto  of  Vercelli  gives  us  a  corresponding  picture  of 
the  lives  of  the  lower  clergy  and  their  wives  and  mis- 
tresses.^ The  proceedings  of  the  Council  of  Trosle, 
in  the  year  909,  confirm  and  enlarge  this  remarkable 
picture.^  Assuredly  no  historian  who  knows  the  tenth 
century  will  find  the  charges  against  Sergius  and  John 
implausible. 

Whatever  may  be  their  value,  John  was  no  idle 
voluptuary.  He  found  the  Saracens  still  devastating 
southern  Italy  and  he  helped,  in  915,  to  form  a  great 
league  against  them.  When  the  Duke  of  Capua  led 
out  his  troops,  and  the  Spoletans  and  Beneventans  fell 
into  line  at  last,  and  even  the  Greeks  sent  a  fleet,  the 
Roman  militia  was  marshalled,  and  John  rode  at  their 
head  beside  the  fiery  young  Alberic  of  Camerino.  He 
was  not  the  first  of  the  many  fighting  Popes:  John 
Vni.  had  built  a  Papal  navy  and  dealt  the  Saracens 
some  shrewd  blows.  But  John  X.  was  the  first  Pope 
to  take  the  field  in  person,  and  we  lament  that  the 
wretched  scribes  of  the  time  have  left  us  no  portrait 
of  the  consecrated  warrior.     We  know  from  his  letters 

'  PrcEloquia,  v.,  7.  *  jEp.,  ix. 

3  Mansi,  xviii.,  263. 


134    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

that  he  exposed  himself  on  the  field,  and  from  the 
chronicles  that  he  fired  the  troops.  The  Saracens  were 
at  last  pinned  in  their  camp  on  a  hill  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Garigliano,  and,  after  a  long  blockade,  were 
annihilated. 

John  and  the  Marquis  Alberic  enjoyed  a  splendid 
ovation  at  Rome,  and  it  was  probably  at  this  date  that 
the  hand  of  Alarozia  was  bestowed  on  Alberic.  But 
the  victory  had  its  price.  John  had  to  surrender  some 
of  his  patrimonies  to  the  Duke  of  Gaeta  and  to  confer 
the  imperial  crown  on  King  Berengar  for  his  assistance. 
When  Berengar  came  to  Rome,  and  promised  to  main- 
tain all  the  rights  and  properties  of  the  Papacy  as  other 
Emperors  had  done,  and  received  the  crown  from  the 
hand  of  the  Pope,  it  must  have  seemed  that  a  brighter 
day  had  dawned  at  last  on  Italy.  But  the  restless 
factions  murmured,  and  in  a  few  years  Rudolph  II.  of 
Burgundy  was  invited  to  come  and  seize  the  crown. 
Berengar  brought  the  half-civilized  Hungarians  to  his 
aid,  and  a  fresh  trail  of  blood  and  fire  marred  the  face 
of  Italy.  He  lost,  and  was  assassinated  (924) ;  but 
Rudolph,  who  won  only  the  crown  of  Italy,  was  not 
left  long  in  peaceful  possession  of  it,  and  the  next  move- 
ment of  Italian  politics  shows  John  in  a  singular  situa- 
tion at  Rome. 

An  earlier  chapter  of  this  history  was  enlivened  by 
the  amours  of  Lothair  of  Lorraine  and  Waldrada. 
They  left  behind  them  an  illegitimate  daughter,  Bertha, 
who  had  all  the  spirit  and  more  than  the  ambition  of 
her  mother.  There  were  many  women  of  commanding 
personality  (and,  usually,  little  scruple)  in  the  early 
Middle  Ages,  and  the  story  of  Theodora  and  Marozia 
must  not  be  regarded  as  very  exceptional.  Bertha 
made  vigorous  efforts  to  win  Italy  for  her  favourite 


John  X.  and  the  Iron  Century        135 

son,  Hugh  of  Provence,  and,  when  she  died  in  925,  his 
sister,  Irmengard,  a  fascinating  woman  who  maintained 
the  domestic  tradition,  won  the  bishops  and  nobles  of 
Lombardy  for  him  by  an  unsparing  use  of  her  charms. 
He  was  presently  invited  to  come  and  drive  the  Burgun- 
dians  out  of  Italy.  John  X.  joined  in  the  invitation 
and  went  to  Mantua  to  meet  him. 

It  is  recorded  that  the  Pope  made  some  obscure 
bargain  with  him  at  Mantua,  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  he  asked  Hugh's  aid  against  Marozia. 
Theophylactus  and  Theodora  were  dead,  and  Marozia 
was  at  deadly  feud  with  the  Pope.  Her  first  husband 
seems  to  have  died  about  925,  and  she  had  married 
Guido  of  Tuscany.  Whether  her  quarrel  with  John 
began  before  her  marriage  we  do  not  know,  but  Liut- 
prand  tells  us  that  she  and  Guido  wanted  to  depose  the 
Pope.  Both  Liutprand  and  Benedict'  make  the  cause 
of  the  quarrel  clear.  John  had  called  his  brother  Peter 
to  his  side  at  Rome,  and  the  power  he  gave  to  his  brother, 
and  therefore  withdrew  from  the  lay  nobles,  infuriated 
his  earlier  supporters.  He  turned,  as  so  many  Popes 
had  done,  to  a  distant  prince,  and  his  career  soon  came 
to  a  close. 

The  chronicle  is  crude  and  meagre,  but  it  suggests 
elementary  and  unbridled  passions.  "The  Marquis 
Peter,"  says  Benedict,  "so  infuriated  the  Romans  that 
he  was  compelled  to  leave  the  city."  He  fortified  him- 
self in  Horta  and  summoned  the  dreaded  Hungarians 
to  his  aid:  than  which  there  could  hardly  be  a  graver 
crime  in  an  Italian  of  the  time.  They  came  in  large 
numbers  and  trod  the  life  out  of  the  Roman  province. 
When  Peter  concluded  that  his  opponents  were  suffi- 
ciently weakened,  he  returned  to  Rome  and  gathered 

*  Antapodosis,  iii.,  43;  Chronicon,  c.  29. 


136    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

troops  about  him.  There  must  have  been  sombre 
days  in  the  city  in  that  year  928.  One  day,  however, 
when  it  was  observed  that  few  of  Peter's  men  had  ac- 
companied him  to  the  Lateran,  a  band  of  Marozia's 
followers  burst  into  the  palace  and  laid  him  dead  at  the 
Pope's  feet.  John  himself  was  taken  from  the  palace 
and  imprisoned,  and  he  died  in  prison  in  the  following 
year  (929) .  Whether  he  was  murdered  or  died  a  natural 
death  is  imcertain.^ 

Such  was  the  not  unnatural  termination  of  one  of  the 
longest  Pontificates  in  the  history  of  Rome,  and  we 
have  no  reason  to  suppose  that,  if  we  had  fuller  narra- 
tives than  those  I  have  quoted,  they  would  redeem  the 
character  of  John  X.  His  desertion  of  Bologna  for 
Ravenna,  and  his  transfer  to  Rome  within  twenty 
years  of  the  time  when  his  party  had  foully  treated  a 
dead  man  for  just  such  an  irregularity:  his  alliance  with 
the  imscrupulous  house  of  Theophylactus :  his  quite 
superfluous  appearance  on  the  battlefield:  his  easy 
distribution  of  royal  and  imperial  crowns:  and,  above 
all,  the  maintenance  of  his  unprincipled  brother  in  the 
teeth  of  deadly  hostility,  sufficiently  indicate  his  char- 
acter. He  was  an  accomplished  adventurer.  He 
writes  a  very  good  Latin  for  the  period,  and  may  well 
have  been  a  charming  and  handsome  and  brave  man. 
It  is  recorded  that  he  richly  decorated  the  Lateran 
Palace.  But  he  was  a  child  of  his  age,  and  the  historian 
finds  it  easier  to  respect  the  sad  and  sincere  reflection 
of  the  older  ecclesiastical  writers — that  Christ  then 
slumbered  in  the  tossing  barque  of  Peter — than  the 

'Benedict  merely  records  his  death.  Flodoard  {Annals,  year  929) 
says  that  "some  attributed  his  death  to  violence,  but  the  majority  to 
grief."  Liutprand  (iii.,  43)  affirms  that  he  was  smothered  with  a 
pillow. 


John  X.  and  the  Iron  Century        i37 

strained  efforts  of  a  few  modern  writers  to  convince  us 
that  the  chosen  Pope  of  an  aristocracy  which  they 
depict  in  the  darkest  colours  was  merely  the  victim  of 
calumny. 

The  little  Pontifical  work  which  John  did  during  his 
fourteen  years  as  Pope  does  not  dispose  us  to  alter  this 
estimate.  The  score  of  his  letters  which  survive  gener- 
ally relate  to  privileges  of  abbeys  or  prelates  which  he 
was  asked  to  grant  or  confirm.  He  gave  support  to 
the  monks  of  Fulda/  of  St.  Gall,^  and  of  Cluny.^  He 
sent  legates  on  a  vague  mission  to  Spain  and  granted  a 
pallium  to  the  Bishop  of  Hamburg,  who  was  converting 
the  far  north.  He  intervened  in  the  religious  troubles 
of  Dalmatia,  at  the  invitation  of  the  local  prelates,  and 
wrote  them  many  letters  4  for  the  regulation  (or  Roman- 
ization)  of  their  Slav  liturgy  and  discipline.  Even  to 
Constantinople,  which  had  one  of  its  rare  moods  of 
affection  for  Rome,  he  sent  legates  to  assist  the  Greeks 
in  obHterating  the  effects  of  their  latest  quarrel. 

His  work  in  Bulgaria  is  not  wholly  clear,  or  it  might 
be  interesting.  King  Simeon  quarrelled  with  the  East- 
em  Church  and  turned  to  Rome,  and  John  naturally 
encouraged  him.  He  sent  legates  to  Bulgaria,  and 
we  learn  from  a  letter  of  Innocent  HI.,  long  after- 
wards, that  they  presented  Simeon  with  a  golden  crown 
from  John.  It  looks  as  if  the  Pope  gave  Simeon  some 
kind  of  imperial  rank,  but  he  did  not  secure  the  adhesion 
to  Rome  of  the  Bulgarian  Church. 

A  few  letters  to  France  and  Germany  are  hardly  more 
instructive.  Heribert  of  Vermandois  seized  the  person 
of  Charles  the  Simple,  and,  when  he  was  threatened 
with  excommunication,  hoodwinked  the  Pope.     Heri- 

'  Ep.,  ii.  '  Ep.,  iv.  3  Ep.,  xiv. 

*  Published  by  Liverani,  iv.,  76-79. 


138    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

bert  then,  in  925,  conferred  the  rich  See  of  Rheims  on  his 
five-year-old  son,  and  John — either  in  order  to  secure 
the  release  of  the  King  or  dreading  worse  things — • 
acqmesced.^  In  Germany  John  sent  his  brother  to 
assist  in  the  restoration  of  discipline  at  the  Synod  of 
Altheim  (916).  A  few  years  later  he  summoned  Heri- 
mann,  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  and  Hilduin  and  Richer, 
rival  bishops  of  Liege,  to  the  bar  of  Rome.  But  in  this 
apparent  assertion  of  authority  he  was  really  acting 
under  pressure  of  the  Emperor  Berengar,  and  the  sequel 
is  not  flattering.  There  was  a  complicated  quarrel 
about  the  bishopric  of  Liege,  and,  when  the  litigants 
refused  to  come  to  Rome,  John  laid  down  a  principle 
which  would  have  seemed  to  Nicholas  I.  or  Gregory 
VII.  an  outrage.  He  rebuked  Herimann  on  the  ground 
of  "an  ancient  custom  that  none  save  the  King,  to 
whom  the  sceptre  is  divinely  committed,  shall  confer  a 
bishopric  on  any  cleric." 

These  letters,  a  poor  record  of  official  work  for  so 
long  a  Pontificate  and  in  so  disordered  a  world,  do  not 
alter  our  impression  of  John.  Rome  shared  the  gloom 
which  lay  over  Europe,  and  it  is  foolish  to  suppose  that 
the  degenerate  nobles  who  ruled  the  Papacy  would 
put  on  its  throne  a  man  who  would  rebuke  their  vices 
or  resent  their  domination.  Indeed,  it  will  be  useful 
to  follow  the  lamentable  story  a  little  further,  as  an 
introduction  to  the  revival  which  culminates  in  Gregory 
VII. 

Marozia  crowned  her  adventurous  life  in  932  by 
marrying  the  step-brother  of  her  late  husband — the 
licentious  Hugh  of  Provence  whom  John  had  helped 
to  put  on  the  throne  of  Italy.  In  the  preceding  year 
she  had  put  in  the  chair  of  Peter  her  son,  John  XL,  a 

'  Flodoard,  EcclesicB  Remensis  Ilistoria,  iv.,  20. 


John  X.  and  the  Iron  Century        139 

mere  shadow  of  a  Pope.  But  the  disgusted  Romans 
flew  to  arms,  imprisoned  John  and  Marozia,  and  sent 
the  brutal  Hugh  flying  for  his  Hfe.  Alberic  II.  then 
controlled  the  city  and  the  Papacy  for  twenty  years, 
and  a  series  of  obscure,  though  apparently  not  un- 
worthy, men  were  appointed  to  discharge  the  scanty 
spiritual  duties  which  Popes  could  or  would  perform  in 
that  darkest  of  the  dark  ages.  Alberic  bequeathed  his 
power  to  his  illegitimate  son  Octavian,  and  compelled 
the  nobles  and  clergy  to  swear  to  make  him  Pope  at 
the  next  vacancy.  John  XII.,  as  he  called  himself, 
proved  the  worst  Pope  yet  recorded:  more  at  home  in 
the  helmet  than  the  tiara,  and  more  expert  in  the  culti- 
vation than  in  the  suppression  of  vice.  When  his  own 
sword  proved  incapable  of  securing  his  rights,  he  sum- 
moned Otto  I.,  with  the  customary  bribe  of  the  imperial 
crown.  Otto  at  length  deposed  him,  after  six  years  of 
scandalous  abuse  of  the  Papacy,  and  he  disappears  from 
history  in  a  singular  legend;  he  died,  it  was  said,  of  a 
blow  on  the  temples  given  him  by  the  devil — possibly 
in  the  person  of  the  injured  husband — during  one  of 
his  amorous  adventures. 

Ten  Popes  and  Anti-Popes,  generally  men  of  no  dis- 
tinction either  in  vice  or  virtue,  succeeded  each  other 
in  the  next  thirty  years.  The  factions  at  Rome  be- 
came more  and  more  violent,  and  Europe  sank  deeper 
and  deeper  into  the  corruption  from  which  Gregory 
VII.  would  endeavour  to  rouse  it.  The  Iron  Century 
closed,  oddly  enough,  with  the  appearance  on  the  Papal 
throne  of  one  of  the  first  scholars  of  Christian  Europe, 
the  famous  Gerbert  (Silvester  II.),  but  his  brief  and 
premature  Pontificate  made  no  impression  on  that  dark 
age.  Under  Sergius  IV.  the  Roman  faction  was  at 
length  destroyed,  but  the  counts  of   Tusculum    now 


140    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

dragged  the  unhappy  Papacy  to  a  lower  depth.  Two 
sons  of  the  first  Count,  Benedict  VIII.  and  John  XIII., 
successively  purchased  the  votes  of  the  electors,  and, 
by  their  venality  and  violence,  added  fresh  stains  to  the 
Papal  chronicle.  The  third  son  of  the  Count  then 
placed  his  own  youthful  offspring  in  the  chair  of  Peter, 
and,  under  the  name  of  Benedict  IX.,  this  youth  de- 
graded it  with  crimes  and  vices  so  well  authenticated 
that  even  the  most  resolute  apologist  cannot  challenge 
the  indictment.  Pope  Victor  III.,  a  few  years  later, 
shudders  to  mention  the  "murders  and  robberies  and 
nameless  vices"  of  Benedict,^  and  his  vague  charges, 
supported  by  Raoul  Glaber  and  other  authorities,  sug- 
gest that  the  Lateran  Palace  must  have  recalled  to  the 
mind  of  any  sufficiently  informed  Roman  some  of  the 
scenes  which  had  been  witnessed  in  Nero's  Golden 
House  in  the  lowest  days  of  paganism.  At  length, 
after  being  twice  expelled  from  Rome,  he  wearied  of  the 
Papacy — one  authority  says  that  he  wished  to  marry — 
and  sold  it  to  his  uncle  John  Gratian  for  one  or  two 
thousand  pounds  of  gold.  By  this  time  there  was  a 
certain  young  Hildebrand  studying  in  the  Lateran 
School,  and  the  story  of  his  life  will  tell  us  the  sequel 
of  this  extraordinary  chapter  of  Papal  history. 

^Dialogties,  bk.  iii. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HILDEBRAND 

THE  historian  might  almost  venture  to  say  that  the 
Papacy  was  not  evolved,  but  created.  It  has 
assuredly,  in  its  varying  fortunes,  reflected  as  faithfully 
as  any  other  institution  the  changes  of  its  human  en- 
vironment, yet  for  each  new  adaptation  to  favouring 
circumstances  it  has  had  to  await  the  advent  of  a  great 
Pope.  Seven  men,  one  might  say,  created  the  Papacy: 
Gelasius  I.,  Leo  I.,  Gregory  I.,  Hadrian  I.,  Nicholas  I., 
Gregory  VII.,  and  Innocent  III.  Each  one  of  these 
deepened  the  foundations  and  enlarged  the  fabric  of 
the  great  religious  principality.  They  have  had  illus- 
trious successors,  and,  in  some  respects,  the  frame  of 
the  Papacy  has  been  further  strengthened;  but,  on  the 
whole,  the  last  five  hundred  years  have  been  filled  with 
a  mighty  and  unavailing  struggle  against  disintegration. 
Of  the  seven  men  I  have  enumerated  Gregory  VII., 
or  Hildebrand  as  historians  still  like  to  call  him,  was 
the  most  romantic  and  the  most  singularly  creative. 
He  was  born  about  the  year  1025,  of  humble  parents, 
in  a  Tuscan  village  near  Sovana.  An  uncle  of  his  was 
abbot  of  a  monastery  on  the  Aventine  at  Rome,  and 
young  Hildebrand  was  at  an  early  date  sent  to  be  edu- 
cated under  his  direction.  We  recognize  in  this  acci- 
dent the  chief  clue  to  the  personality  and  achievements 

141 


142    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

of  Gregory  VII.  A  century  earlier  a  group  of  monks 
at  Cluny  had  reformed  their  ways,  and  their  stricter 
ideas  had  slowly  spread  from  one  isolated  monastery 
to  another.  The  monastery  of  St.  Mary  on  the  Aven- 
tine  was  one  of  these  rare  centres  of  sincere  asceticism, 
and  in  it  the  boy  would  hear  talk  of  the  appalling  de- 
gradation which  had  come  over  the  Church  of  Christ. 
It  seems,  however,  very  doubtful  whether  he  ever  made 
the  vows  of  a  monk.  He  certainly  wore  the  monk's 
habit,  and  no  epithet  is  more  common  on  the  lips  of  his 
opponents  than  "vagabond  monk";  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  his  admirers  accept  the  monastic  title,  and  justify 
the  "vagabondage,"  by  various  unreliable  stories 
about  his  connexion  with  the  Benedictines.  But  he 
never  describes  himself  as  a  monk,  and  he  is  not  so 
described  in  the  most  reliable  documents.  The  point 
is  of  slight  importance,  since  Hildebrand  certainly 
adopted  the  sentiments  of  the  monastic  reformers,  and 
I  will  not  linger  over  the  extensive  and  conflicting  evi- 
dence.' Gregory's  fiery  and  aggressive  nature  would 
not  suffer  him  to  contemplate  the  triumph  of  evil  from 
the  remote  impotence  of  a  monastery,  but  he  learned 

'  The  two  ablest  recent  writers  on  Hildebrand,  the  Right  Reverend 
Dr.  A.  H.  Mathew  {The  Life  and  Times  of  Hildebrand,  19 10)  and  Dr. 
W.  Martens  (liar  Gregor  VII.  Monch?,  1891,  and  Gregor  VII.,  2  vols. 
1894 — an  invaluable  study),  hold  that  he  never  took  the  vows.  The 
chief  biography  of  Hildebrand  on  the  Catholic  side  is  now  the  Abb6 
O.  Delarc's  Gregoire  VII.  et  la  Reforme  de  I'Eglise  au  XI  siecle  (3  vols., 
1889).  Slight  but  excellent  sketches  will  be  found  in  F.  Roquain's 
La  P apatite  au  moyen  dge  (1881)  and  Hildebrand  and  His  Times  (1888) 
by  W.  R.  W.  Stephens.  Older  writers  like  Voigt,  Gfrorer,  Villemain, 
and  Bowden  are  now  of  little  use.  The  original  authorities  are  as 
numerous  as  they  are  unreliable.  The  partisans  of  Gregory  (chiefly 
Bonitho  and  Donizo)  are  scarcely  more  scrupulous  than  the  partisans 
of  Henry  (Benzo,  Benno,  Guido,  etc.),  or  those  of  Rudolph  (Lam- 
bert, Berthold,  Bruno,  etc.).  Fortunately  we  have  a  large  number  of 
Gregory's  letters,  and,  as  usual,  I  rely  chiefly  on  these. 


Hildebrand  143 

his  lesson  from  monks  and  would  rely  on  them  through- 
out life. 

He  went  also  to  the  Lateran  School,  where  John 
Gratian,  whom  we  described  in  the  last  chapter  as 
buying  the  Papacy  from  his  nephew  Benedict  IX.,  was 
a  teacher.  Gratian  marked  the  ecclesiastical  promise 
of  the  dark  and  ill-favoured  little  Tuscan,  and,  when  he 
bought  the  title  of  Gregory  VI.,  made  him  one  of  his 
capellani:  at  that  time  a  body  of  lay  officials.  The 
work  suited  Hildebrand,  who  was  even  more  of  a  soldier 
than  a  monk.  The  road  to  Rome  was  lamentably  be- 
set by  brigands;  the  houses  of  many  of  the  nobles  in 
the  city  itself  were,  in  fact,  little  better  than  the  forti- 
fied dens  of  wealthy  banditti,  and  the  crowds  of  pil- 
grims might  have  their  gifts  torn  from  their  hands  at 
the  very  steps  of  Peter's  altar.  So  Hildebrand  organ- 
ized a  militia  and  made  some  impression  on  the  robbers. 

Gregory  VI.  was  a  more  religious  man  than  his  pur- 
chase of  the  See  would  suggest.  He  was  conspicuous 
for  chastity  at  a  time  when,  a  caustic  contemporary 
said,  it  was  regarded  at  Rome  as  an  angelic  virtue. 
There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  bought  the 
Roman  See  with  the  best  of  intentions.  Unhappily, 
Benedict  IX.  exhausted  his  treasury  and  returned  to 
claim  his  dignity;  while  another  faction  of  the  Romans 
set  up  a  pretender  under  the  name  of  Silvester  II. 
Gregory  ruled  his  flock — there  was  very  little  Papal 
ruling  of  the  world  in  those  days — from  Sta.  Maria 
Maggiore:  Silvester  controlled  St.  Peter's  and  the  Papal 
mansion  on  the  Vatican:  Benedict  held  the  Lateran. 
This  squalid  spectacle  must  have  sunk  deep  into  the 
soul  of  the  young  reformer.  But  there  were  religious 
men  in  Rome,  and  the  virtuous  Henry  III.  was  sum- 
moned from  Germany.     The  remedy  was  almost  as 


144    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

humiliating  as  the  disorder.  Henry  scattered  the  rivals 
and,  observing  that  there  was  no  member  of  the  Roman 
clergy  fit  to  occupy  the  See,  he  put  into  it  one  of  his 
German  bishops,  with  the  title  of  Clement  II. 

Hildebrand  went  with  his  patron,  in  the  King's 
train,  to  Germany,  but  the  more  rigorous  climate  soon 
made  an  end  of  John  Gratian.  It  is  said,  but  is  by  no 
means  certain,  that  Hildebrand  then  went  to  Cluny 
for  a  time.  It  is  at  all  events  certain  that  in  1049,  the 
Roman  climate  having  killed  two  German  Popes  in 
two  years,  Hildebrand  returned  to  Italy  in  the  train  of 
Bishop  Bruno.  Under  the  name  of  Leo  IX.  this  hand- 
some, stately,  and  deeply  religious  Pontiff  spent  the 
next  six  years  in  a  devoted  effort  to  reform  the  Church. 
The  magnitude  of  his  task  may  be  measured  by  that 
appalling  indictment  of  clerical  and  monastic  vice,  the 
Book  of  Gomorrha,  which  Peter  Damiani  wrote  under 
Leo  IX.,  and  with  his  cordial  approval.  Leo  visited 
the  chief  coimtries  of  Europe,  but  he  could  make  little 
impression  on  that  stubborn  age  and  he  died  almost 
broken-hearted.  Under  him  Hildebrand  served  his 
apprenticeship.  He  became  a  cardinal-subdeacon,  a 
guardian  of  St.  Peter's,  and  rector  of  the  monastery  of 
St.  Paul:  in  which,  to  his  fine  disgust,  he  found  women 
serving  the  monks.  He  went  also  as  legate  to  France, 
where  he  dealt  leniently  with  and  learned  to  esteem  the 
chief  heretic  of  the  age,  Berenger.  Hildebrand  had 
little  insight  into  character  and  less  into  speculative 
theology.     To  the  end  of  his  Hfe  he  befriended  Berenger. 

Leo  died  in  1055,  and  Hildebrand  was  sent  to  ask 
Henry  III.  to  choose  a  successor.  Henry  in  turn  died 
in  1056,  and,  as  the  Roman  See  was  again  vacant  in  the 
following  year  and  the  Romans  were  emboldened  to 
choose  their  own  Pope,  Hildebrand  was  sent  to  concili- 


Hildebrand  i45 

ate  the  Empress  Agnes.  We  must  not  exaggerate  his 
influence  at  this  time,  but  undoubtedly  the  new  Pope, 
Stephen  X.,  and  his  fanatical  Cardinal,  Peter  Damiani — 
both  monks  of  the  reforming  school, — regarded  him  as 
one  of  their  most  ardent  lieutenants.  Indeed  from  that 
time  we  trace  the  adoption  at  Rome  of  a  policy  which  is 
clearly  due  to  Hildebrand.  The  Papacy  began  to  look 
to  the  Normans,  who  had  conquered  southern  Italy, 
to  save  it  from  the  overlordship  of  the  German  court, 
and  to  wage  a  stern  war  against  simony  and  clerical 
incontinence.  Hildebrand,  who  had  a  strange  fascina- 
tion for  pious  women,  easily  won  the  Empress  Agnes, 
but  she  was  surrounded  or  controlled  by  simoniacal 
prelates  and  nobles.  Rome  must  once  more  change  its 
suzerain,  or  its  sword-bearer. 

In  the  campaign  for  enforcing  celibacy  on  the  clergy 
the  monastic  reforming  school  provided  fresh  allies. 
There  was  in  the  city  of  Milan  a  young  priest  named 
Anselm  of  Baggio,  who  had  studied  under  Lanfranc  at 
Bee.  This  enthusiast  for  the  new  ideas  began  a  nota- 
ble campaign  against  clerical  marriage,  and,  when  his 
archbishop  genially  transferred  him  to  the  remote 
bishopric  of  Lucca,  he  left  his  gospel  in  charge  of  two 
other  enthusiasts  named  Ariald  and  Landulph.  It 
must  be  recollected  that  clerics  did  not  at  that  time 
take  any  vow  of  chastity,  and  there  were  only  a  few 
disciplinary  decrees  of  earlier  Popes  to  curtail  their 
liberty.  Most  of  the  priests  of  every  country  were 
legally  married,  though  in  some  places  the  law  of  celi- 
bacy was  enforced  and  they  simply  had  mistresses. 
Against  both  wives  and  mistresses  a  furious  campaign 
was  now  directed  by  the  Patarenes. '     The  vilest  names 

■  The  reformers  of  jNIilan  worked  chiefly  among  the  poor,  especially 
in  the  "old-clothes  quarter,"  or  Pataria.     Hence  the  name  of  the  party. 


X 


146    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

were  showered  on  the  unhappy  wives  and  children :  the 
priests,  who  said  that  they  would  rather  desert  their 
orders  than  their  wives,  were  torn  from  the  altars:  the 
most  lamentable  excesses  in  the  cause  of  virtue  were 
committed  in  the  churches.  Hildebrand,  and  after- 
wards Damiani,  were  sent  to  enforce  what  is  described 
as  the  "pacifying  policy"  of  Rome,  and  we  read  that 
Milan  approached  the  verge  of  civil  war. 

While  Hildebrand  was  still  inflaming  the  enthusiasts 
of  the  north,  Stephen  X.  died,  and  the  party  opposed 
to  the  Puritans  at  Rome  at  once  elected  a  Pope  of  their 
own  school.  The  young  subdeacon  now  plainly  showed 
his  character  and  masterfulness.  He  persuaded  the 
virtuous  archbishop  of  Florence  to  accept  the  title  of 
Nicholas  11.,  begged  a  small  army  from  the  Duke  of 
Tuscany,  entered  Rome  at  the  head  of  his  soldiers,  and 
swept  "  Benedict  X."  and  his  supporters  out  of  the  city. 
The  cause  of  virtue  was  to  be  sustained,  at  whatever 
cost:  the  keynote  of  his  life  was  sounded.  We  may 
also  confidently  see  the  action  of  Hildebrand  in  a  very 
important  decision  of  a  Lateran  synod  held  under 
Nicholas  that  year  (1059).  In  future  the  choice  of  a 
Pope  was  to  be  confined  to  the  cardinal-bishops,  who 
would  submit  their  decision  to  the  cardinal-priests 
and  deacons.'  The  rest  of  the  clergy  and  the  people 
were  merely  to  signify  their  assent  by  acclamation,  and 
the  decree  contains  a  vague  expression  of  respect  for 
"the  rights  of  the  Emperor."     A  sonorous  anathema 

'The  word  "cardinal"  occurs  occasionally  in  early  ecclesiastical 
literature  in  its  literal  meaning  of  "important,"  and  is  applied  to  clerics 
of  various  orders.  After  the  fifth  century  it  is  restricted  at  Rome  to 
the  first  priests  of  each  of  the  tituli  (quasi-parishes)  into  which  the 
city  was  divided.  They  numbered  twenty-eight  in  the  ele'>'-enth  cen- 
tury. In  the  course  of  time  the  name  was  also  given  to  the  seventeen 
leading  deacons  of  Rome  and  the  seven  suburbicarian  bishops. 


Hildebrand  147 

was  laid  on  any  who  departed  from  this  decree;  and  I 
may  add  at  once  that  Hildebrand,  who  was  probably 
its  author,  entirely  ignored  it  in  making  the  next  Pope 
and  in  his  own  election.  It  was  the  first  phase  in  the 
struggle  with  the  Empire.  The  German  court  was  dis- 
tracted by  the  intrigues  of  rival  prelates  to  secure  the 
control  of  the  Empress  and  her  son,  while  the  Papacy 
now  had  the  support  of  the  Norman  Richard  of  Capua 
(whom  Hildebrand  induced  to  swear  fealty  to  the 
Papacy),  the  troops  of  Tuscany,  and  the  staves  of  the 
Patarenes.  The  German  court  replied  by  refusing  to 
acknowledge  Nicholas  II. 

Hildebrand  rose  to  the  rank  of  deacon,  then  of  arch- 
deacon: the  straightest  path  to  the  Papacy.  Had  he 
willed,  he  could  have  become  Pope  in  1061,  when 
Nicholas  died,  but  the  time  was  not  ripe  for  his  colossal 
design.  The  anti- Puritans  now  sought  alliance  with 
the  German  court  against  him,  but  he  summoned  a 
band  of  Normans  and,  with  the  aid  of  their  spears,  put 
Anselm  of  Lucca  on  the  Papal  throne:  completely 
ignoring  the  decree  of  1059.  The  anti-Puritans  of 
Rome  and  Lombardy  now  united  with  the  Imperialists, 
and  Bishop  Cadalus  of  Parma  was  made  Anti-Pope. 
The  war  of  words  which  followed  was  disdainfully  left 
by  Hildebrand  to  Damiani,  who,  in  a  page  of  almost 
indescribable  invective,  assures  us  that  Cadalus  was 
"the  stench  of  the  globe,  the  filth  of  the  age,  the  shame 
of  the  universe,"  and  that  his  episcopal  supporters 
were  better  judges  of  pretty  faces  than  of  Papal  candi- 
dates. The  Imperialist  Bishop  Benzo  of  Albi,  a  genial 
Epicure  who  united  an  equal  power  of  invective  with  a 
more  polished  culture,  retorted  heavily  on  the  "vaga- 
bond monks"  (Damiani  and  Hildebrand).  At  last  it 
came  to  blows,  and  Hildebrand  acted.     Cadalus  de- 


148   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

scended  on  Rome  with  German  and  Lombard  troops: 
Hildebrand  summoned  the  Normans,  and  a  fierce  battle 
was  waged  for  the  tiara  under  the  very  shadow  of  St. 
Peter's.  Then  Godfrey  of  Tuscany  appeared  on  the 
scene  with  his  army,  and  the  decision  was  remitted  to 
a  synod  at  Augsburg.  Hildebrand  was  content,  for  a 
revolution  had  occurred  at  the  German  court,  and 
Damiani  was  sent  to  win  the  verdict  at  Augsburg  by 
the  ingenious  expedient  of  being  himself  counsel  for 
both  sides. 

The  way  was  now  rapidly  prepared  for  the  Pontifi- 
cate of  Hildebrand.  Godfrey  of  Tuscany  died,  and  his 
pious  widow  Beatrice  and  still  more  impressionable 
daughter  Mathilda  were  prepared  to  put  their  last 
soldier  at  his  disposal.  The  Patarenes  were  reinforced 
by  the  knight  Herlembald  (whose  lady-love  had  been 
seduced  by  a  priest),  and  were  dragging  the  married 
priests  from  their  churches  and  destroying  their  homes 
in  many  parts  of  north  Italy.  At  Florence  the  monks 
of  Vallombrosa  lent  their  fiery  aid,  even  against  the 
troops,  and  one  of  their  number  passed  unscathed 
through  the  ordeal  of  fire  before  an  immense  concourse 
of  people.  In  the  south  Robert  Guiscard  was  expelling 
the  last  remnants  of  the  Saracens  a,nd  founding  a  power- 
ful Norman  kingdom.  All  these  forces  marched  under 
banners  blessed  and  presented  by  the  Pope.  One  ban- 
ner advanced  by  the  side  of  the  ferocious  Herlembald: 
one  shone  at  the  head  of  the  Norman  troops  in  Calabria : 
one  was  seen  in  the  ranks  of  William  of  Normandy 
when  he  made  his  successful  raid  upon  England.^ 

'  In  this  last  case  we  have  the  assurance  of  Hildebrand  himself  that 
he  dictated  the  Papal  policy.  Years  afterwards  he  wrote  to  William 
{Ep.,  vii.,  23)  that,  when  the  Norman  envoys  came  to  ask  Papal  ap- 
proval of  his  design,  it  was  generally  censured  as  an  unjustifiable  raid, 


Hildebrand  149 

Alexander  closed  his  short  and  earnest  Pontificate 
on  April  21,  1073.  Hildebrand,  in  his  capacity  of 
archdeacon,  took  stringent  measures  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  order,  or  the  coercion  of  the  Imperialist  faction ; 
yet,  when  the  voice  of  the  people  demanded  that  he 
should  be  Pope,  his  troops  made  no  effort  to  secure  an 
election  according  to  the  decree  of  1059.  He  was 
conducting  the  funeral  service  over  the  remains  of 
Alexander,  on  April  22d,  when  the  cry,  "Hildebrand 
bishop,"  was  raised.  He  protested,  but  Cardinal  Hugh 
Candidus,  one  of  the  most  versatile  clerical  politicians 
of  the  time  and  afterwards  the  Pope's  deadly  enemy, 
stood  forth  and  insisted  that  the  cry  was  just.  Hilde- 
brand was  seized  and  conducted,  almost  carried,  to  the 
church  of  St.  Peter  in  Chains,  where  he  was  enthroned, 
as  he  afterwards  wrote  to  Abbot  Didier,^  by  "popular 
tumult."  It  is  not  certain,  but  is  entirely  probable, 
that  he  sought  the  imperial  ratification.  We  may  con- 
clude that  he  did  this,  since,  when  he  was  consecrated 
on  June  30th,  the  Empress  Agnes  and  the  imperial 
representative  in  Italy  were  present. 

In  the  letters  which  Gregory  issued  to  his  friends 
throughout  Europe  immediately  after  his  election  he 
observes  that  the  strain  and  anxiety  have  made  him 
ill.  We  can  well  believe  that  when  the  hour  arrived 
for  him  to  mount  the  throne  of  Peter,  instead  of  stand- 
ing behind  it,  he  felt  a  grave  foreboding.  No  man  had 
ever  yet  ascended  that  throne  with  so  portentous  an 

and  Hildebrand  alone  induced  Pope  Alexander  to  send  the  Normans 
a  banner:  on  condition,  he  adds,  that  William  secured  the  payment  of 
Peter's  Pence  by  the  reluctant  English  and  in  other  ways  promoted 
the  interests  of  Rome.  But  even  William  did  not  dream  that  his  ac- 
ceptance of  the  banner  made  England,  in  Hildebrand's  opinion,  a  fief  of 
the  Roman  See! 
'  Ep.,  i.,  I. 


150   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

idea  of  its  prestige  and  responsibility,  and  no  Pope  had 
ever  confronted  a  more  disordered  Christendom.  There 
had  been  good  men  at  the  Lateran  for  thirty  years,  yet 
in  the  eyes  of  Hildebrand  they  must  have  seemed  idle, 
timid,  and  ineffective.  A  Pope  must  wear  out  his  body 
and  lay  down  his  life  in  the  struggle  with  triumphant 
evil:  must  smite  king  or  prelate  or  peasant  without 
a  moment's  hesitation:  must  use  every  weapon  that 
the  times  afforded — excommunication  or  imprecation, 
the  spear  of  the  Norman  or  the  sword  of  the  Dane,  the 
staff  of  the  ignorant  fanatic  or  the  tender  devotion  of 
woman.  "The  Blessed  Peter  on  earth,"  as  Hildebrand 
called  himself,  had  a  right  to  implicit  obedience  from 
every  man  on  earth,  on  temporal  no  less  than  on  spiri- 
tual matters.  Kings  were  of  less  consequence  than  the 
meanest  priests.  If  kings  and  dukes  resisted  his  grand 
plan  of  making  the  whole  of  Christendom  "pure  and 
obedient,"  wh}"  not  make  their  kingdoms  and  duchies 
fiefs  of  the  Holy  See,  to  be  bestowed  on  virtuous  men? 
Why  not  make  Europe  the  United  States  of  the  Church, 
governed  despotically  by  the  one  man  on  earth  who  was 
"inspired  by  God"?  If  anathemas  failed,  there  were 
swords  enough  in  Europe  to  carry  out  his  plan.  That, 
literally,  was  the  vision  which  filled  the  feverish  imagi- 
nation of  Gregory  VII.  when  he  looked  down  from  his 
throne  over  the  world. 

It  was  the  dream  of  a  soldier-monk,  unchecked  by 
understanding  of  men  or  accurate  knowledge  of  history. 
Such  reformers  as  Cardinal  Damiani  and  Abbot  Didier 
resented  Gregory's  aims  and  procedure:  they  were  most 
appreciated  by  women  like  the  Countess  Mathilda. 
Hildebrand  is  said  to  have  been  a  learned  man,  but  we 
have  cause  to  take  with  reserve  mediaeval  compliments 
of  this  kind.     He  knew  the  Bible  well,  and  was  steeped 


Hildebrand  151 

in  the  congenial  atmosphere  of  the  Old  Testament. 
He  knew  Church-history  and  law  well:  as  they  were 
told  at  the  Lateran.  Dollinger  has  shown  that  his 
principal  lieutenants  in  the  work  of  reform — Bishop 
Anselm  of  Lucca  (a  second  Anselm),  Bishop  Bonitho, 
and  Cardinal  Deusdedit — were  unscrupulous  in  their 
use  of  historical  and  canonical  documents,  and  that 
Gregory  relied  on  these  as  well  as  on  the  older  forgeries.  ^ 
I  am,  however,  chiefly  concerned  with  the  limitations 
of  his  knowledge,  and  will  observe  only  that  his  letters, 
written  in  robust  and  inelegant  Latin,  give  no  indication 
of  culture  beyond  this  close  acquaintance  with  very 
dubious  history  and  law.  The  Arab  civilization  had 
by  this  time  enkindled  some  intellectual  life  in  Europe: 
men  were  not  far  from  the  age  of  Abelard.  But  in  this 
new  speculative  life  Gregory  had  no  share.  If  we  find 
him,  with  apparent  liberality,  acquitting  Berenger  in 
1049  and  1079,  we  must  ascribe  it  rather  to  incapacity 
and  disinclination  for  speculative  matters. 

This  restriction  and  inaccuracy  of  culture  strength- 
ened Gregory  in  his  peculiar  ideal,  and  it  was  much 
the  same  with  his  poor  judgment  of  character,  which 
brought  many  a  disaster  on  him.  Probably  men  like 
Hildebrand  and  Damiani  enjoyed  a  physical  debility 
in  regard  to  sex-life,  and  sincerely  failed  to  realize  that 


^  Das  Papstthunt  (1892),  ch.  ii.,  §  2.  See  also  F.  Roquain's  La  Pa- 
paute  au  tnoyen  dge.  Roquain  observes,  leniently,  that  Gregory  was 
"not  entirely  exempt  from  reproach  in  the  use  of  means  to  attain  his 
ends"  (p.  127)  and  fell  into  " excesses  unworthy  of  his  great  soul"  (p. 
131).  In  his  famous  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  IMetz  (viii.,  21)  Gregory 
omits  an  essential  part  of  a  passage  which  he  quotes  from  Gelasius 
and  materially  alters  its  meaning.  When  we  further  find  him  writing 
(ix.,  2)  that  "even  a  lie  that  is  told  for  a  good  purpose  in  the  cause  of 
peace  is  not  wholly  free  from  blame,"  we  fear  that  he  was  not  far  from 
the  maxim  that  the  end  justifies  the  means. 


152   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

the  abolition  of  clerical  marriage  would  inevitably  lead 
to  worse  evils.  The  ideal  they  worked  for — the  estab- 
lishment of  a  spiritual  army  dead  to  every  human  affec- 
tion, and  therefore  incorruptible — was  magnificent  but 
impossible.  Similarly,  in  the  campaign  against  simony, 
Gregory  never  realized  the  roots  of  the  evil.  Bishops 
were  politicians,  the  supporters  or  thwarters  of  the 
counsels  of  princes;  intellectual  culture  was,  in  fact, 
almost  confined  to  bishops  and  abbots,  and  their  advice 
was  (apart  from  their  wealth,  their  troops,  and  their 
feudal  duties)  needed  as  much  as  that  of  unlettered 
soldiers.  Hence  princes  had  a  real  and  deep  interest 
in  their  appointment.  The  intrigue  for  poHtical  power 
at  that  very  time  of  the  great  prelates  of  Germany 
was  notorious.  If  Gregory  had  at  least  confined  his 
strictures  to  simony  in  the  strict  sense,  he  might 
have  had  some  prospect  of  success,  for  his  cause  was 
obviously  just.  But  by  his  attack  on  ''investiture"' 
he  would  take  away  from  princes  the  control  of  some 
of  their  most  powerful,  and  often  most  mischievous, 
vassals. 

Yet,  instead  of  seeking  to  deprive  bishops  and  abbots 
of  wealth  and  troops  and  political  influence,  Hildebrand 
wanted  them  to  have  more.  He  encouraged  Anselm 
of  Lucca  to  lead  the  Tuscan  troops;  he  proposed  in 
person  to  lead  the  Christian  armies  against  the  Turks. 
Throughout  life  he  called  for  more  men  and  more 
money,  and  he  never  hesitated  an  instant  to  set  swords 
flying  if  he  could  gain  his  religious  aim  by  that  means. 

'  The  secular  ruler  had  long  been  accustomed  to  bestow  the  crozier 
and  ring  on  his  nominee  for  a  bishopric,  and  this  was  known  as  "investi- 
ture." The  practice  undoubtedly  led  to  much  simony  and  to  the 
appointment  of  unworthy  men,  but,  as  the  event  proved,  a  compromise 
was  possible. 


Hildebrand  153 

He  was  as  warlike  as  a  full-blooded  Norman.  Bishop 
Mathew  calls  him  "truculent,"  and  reminds  us  how, 
before  he  became  Pope,  Abbot  Didier  wanted  to  punish 
an  abbot,  who  had  gouged  out  the  eyes  of  some  of  his 
monks  for  their  sins,  but  Hildebrand  protected  the 
man  and  afterwards  made  him  a  bishop.  Didier  and 
Damiani  were  equally  shocked  at  his  political  activity. 
He  scorned  the  distinction  between  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral things — except  when  he  was  endeavouring  to  keep 
laymen  in  their  proper  place— and  argued  repeatedly 
that,  if  a  Pope  had  supreme  power  in  matters  of  re- 
ligion, he  very  clearly  had  it  in  the  less  important  con- 
cerns of  earth :  if  a  Pope  could  open  and  close  the  gates 
of  heaven,  he  could  most  assuredly  open  and  close  the 
gates  of  earthly  kingdoms.  He  went  so  far  as  to  say 
that  "all  worldly  things,  be  they  honours,  empires, 
kingdoms,  principaHties,  or  duchies,"  he  could  bestow 
on  whomsoever  he  wished.^  On  this  ground  he,  as  we 
shall  see,  grasped  the  flimsiest  pretexts  for  claiming  a 
kingdom  as  a  fief  of  the  Roman  See,  relying  often  on 
forged  or  perverted  texts,  and  he  quite  clearly  aimed 
at  bringing  all  the  countries  in  Christendom  under  the 
feudal  lordship  of  the  Papacy,  to  be  bestowed  for  "obe- 
dience" and  withdrawn  for  "disobedience"  at  the  will 
of  the  Pope.  I  do  not  admit  that  he  was  ambitious, 
even  ambitious  for  his  See.  He  believed  that  this  sacer- 
docracy  was  willed  by  God  and  was  the  only  means  of 
maintaining  religion  and  morality  in  Europe.  But 
there  were  human  aspects  of  these  questions  which 
Gregory  ignored,  and  his  bitter  and  numerous  opponents 
retorted  that  he  was  a  fool  or  a  fanatic. 

This  ideal  did  not  merely  grow  in  Gregory's  mind  in 

•  Speech  to  the  Roman  synod  of  the  year  1080  (Migne,  vol.  cxlviii., 
col.  816).     Compare  Ep.,  viii.,  21. 


154  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

the  heat  of  his  combats.  It  is  seen  in  his  eariiest  letters. 
Before  he  was  consecrated  he  wrote  to  remind  "the 
Princes  of  Spain"  that  that  country  belonged  to  the 
Roman  See :  that  the  Popes  had  never  abandoned  their 
right  to  it,  even  when  it  was  held  by  the  Moors:  and 
that  the  kings  who  were  now  wresting  it  from  the  Moors 
held  their  kingdoms  "on  behalf  of  St.  Peter"  {ex  parte 
S.  Petri)  and  on  condition  that  they  rendered  feudal 
military  service  when  summoned  to  do  so.'  A  few 
weeks  later  he  wrote  to  Duke  Godfrey,  referring  to 
Henry  IV.:  "If  he  returns  hatred  for  love,  and  shows 
contempt  for  Almighty  God  for  the  honour  conferred 
on  him,  the  imprecation  which  runs,  '  Cursed  is  he  that 
refraineth  his  sword  from  blood, '  will  not,  with  God's 
help,  fall  on  us.''^  In  June  he  told  Beatrice  and  Ma- 
thilda that  he  would  resist  the  King,  if  necessary,  "to  the 
shedding  of  blood.  "^  In  the  same  month  he  compelled 
Landulph  of  Benevento  and  Richard  of  Capua  to  swear 
fealty  to  the  Roman  See.  In  November  he  told  Lan- 
franc,  the  greatest  prelate  of  England,  that  he  was 
astounded  at  his  "audacity"  {frons)  in  neglecting 
Papal  orders,  4  In  December  he  wrote  to  a  French 
bishop  that  if  King  Philip  did  not  amend  his  ways  he 
would  smite  the  French  people  with  "the  sword  of  a 
general  anathema"  and  they  would  "refuse  to  obey 
him  further,  "s  A  remarkable  record  for  the  first  nine 
months  of  his  Pontificate. 

I  shall  not  in  the  least  misrepresent  his  work  if  I 
dismiss  other  matters  briefly  and  enlarge  on  his  attempts 
^.  to  realize  his  sacerdocratic  ideal :  especially  his  struggle 
with  Henry  IV.  His  campaign  against  simony  and 
clerical  incontinence  fills  the  whole  period  of  his  Pon- 
tificate, but  cannot  be  described  in  detail.  Year  by 
•£/).,  i.,  7.  'Ep.,u,9.  3 1.,  1 1.  I.,  31.  5Im35. 


Hildebrand  155 

year  his  handful  of  Italian  bishops — remoter  bishops 
generally  ignored  his  drastic  orders  to  come  to  Rome — 
met  in  Lenten  synods  at  Rome,  held  their  lighted 
candles  while  he  read  the  ever-lengthening  list  of  the 
excommunicated,  and  shuddered  at  his  vigorous  impre- 
cations. Then  his  legates  went  out  over  Europe,  but 
few  prelates  were  willing  or  able  to  promulgate  the 
decrees  they  brought,  and  the  campaign  succeeded 
only  where  it  could  rely  on  the  staves  of  the  Patarenes 
or  the  swords  of  the  Pope's  allies.  Other  episcopal 
functions,  such  as  settlements  of  jurisdiction,  occupy 
a  relatively  small  part  of  his  correspondence.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  his  eye  ranged  from  Lincoln  to 
Constantinople,  from  Stockholm  to  Carthage. 

In  Italy,  his  chief  concern  was  to  concentrate  the 
southern  States  under  his  lead  and  form  a  military 
bulwark  against  the  northerners.  The  Roman  militia 
was  strengthened:  the  petty  princes  of  Benevento  and 
Capua  were  persuaded  that  their  shrunken  territories 
were  safer  from  the  aggressions  of  Robert  Guiscard 
if  they  paid  allegiance  to  St.  Peter:  Mathilda  of  Tuscany 
did  not  even  need  to  be  persuaded  to  hold  her  troops 
at  his  disposal.  It  would  be  safe  to  say  that  Italy 
alone  would  have  wrecked  Gregory's  policy  but  for  the 
lucky  accident  of  Tuscany  passing  to  the  pious  Mathilda. 
She  clung  to  Gregory  so  tenaciously  that  his  opponents 
affected  to  see  a  scandal  in  the  association. 

The  chief  thorn  in  his  side  was  Robert  Guiscard,  who 
had  founded  a  kingdom  in  southern  Italy  and  refused 
to  do  homage.  He  laid  waste  the  territory  of  the 
Pope's  allies,  and  smiled  at  the  anathema  put  on  him. 
Gregory,  as  usual,  turned  to  the  sword.  The  Eastern 
Emperor  had  asked  aid  against  the  Turks,  and  Gregory 
summoned  all  Christian  princes  to  contribute  troops. 


156    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

He  would  lead  the  army  in  person,  he  said :  supported 
by  the  aged  Beatrice  and  the  tender  Mathilda.  The 
northern  princes  smiled,  and  the  plan  of  a  crusade  came 
to  naught.  But  it  was  not  merely  concern  for  Constan- 
tinople which  made  Gregory  dangerously  ill  when  his 
plan  miscarried.  Historians  generally  overlook  his 
letter  to  William  of  Burgundy,'  in  which  he  plainly 
states  that  he  wants  the  troops  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
timidating— if  not  conquering — Robert:  "perhaps,"  he 
says,  they  may  afterwards  proceed  to  the  East.  He  was 
still  more  irritated  when  Robert  himself  entered  into 
an  alliance  with  Constantinople.  Gregory  angrily 
wrote  to  ask  the  King  of  Denmark  to  send  his  son  with 
an  army  and  wrest  the  south  of  Italy  from  the  "vile 
heretics"  who  held  it.^ 

He  was  similarly  thwarted  in  nearly  every  country 
in  Europe,  and  his  anathemas  were  terrible  to  hear. 
I  have  already  referred  to  his  haughty  language  to 
Lanfranc,  yet  the  English  bishops  continued,  year  after 
year,  to  ignore  the  imperious  summons  to  attend  his 
Roman  synods.  In  1079  Gregory  wrote  to  Lanfranc 
that  he  understood  that  the  King  prevented  them  from 
coming,  and  was  surprised  that  the  "superstitious  love" 
or  fear  of  any  man  should  come  between  him  and  his 
duty. 3  Lanfranc  still  evaded,  almost  fooled,  him,  and, 
when  Gregory  threatened  to  suspend  him,  affected  to 
be  engaged  in  examining  the  claims  of  an  Anti-Pope 
whom  Henry  IV.  had  set  up.  With  William  himself 
Gregory  was  bitterly  disappointed.  When,  in  1080, 
he  ordered  the  King  to  collect  the  arrears  of  Peter's 
Pence  and  acknowledge  his  feudal  obligations  to  Rome, 
William  somewhat  contemptuously  replied  that  he 
would  forward  the  money,  but  would  pay  allegiance  to 

•  I.,  46.  =■  II.,  51.  3  VI.,  30. 


Hildebrand  i57 

no  man.     Gregory  was  so  angry  that  he  told  his  legates 
that  the  money  was  no  use  without  the  "honour."' 

The  bishops  of  France  were  equally  deaf  to  his  annual 
summons  to  his  Lenten  synods  and  his  orders  that  they 
should  punish  their  King.  He  threatened,  not  only 
to  pronounce  an  interdict,  but  that  he  would  "endeav- 
our in  every  way  to  take  the  kingdom  of  France  from 
him."^  A  similar  threat  of  military  action  was  sent 
to  Spain.  King  Alphonso  of  Leon  married  a  relative, 
and  Gregory  wrote  to  the  abbot  of  Cluny  that  if  the 
King  did  not  obey  his  orders  and  dismiss  her  he  would 
"not  think  it  too  great  a  trouble  to  go  ourselves  to 
Spain  and  concert  severe  and  painful  action  [evidently 
military  action]  against  him."^  This  policy  of  pro- 
moting or  blessing  invasions  and  usurpations  was 
carried  out  in  the  case  of  smaller  kingdoms.  King 
Solomon  was  ejected  from  Hungary  and  appealed  to 
Rome.  Gregory  blessed  the  usurper  (who  craftily 
promised  to  be  a  good  son  of  the  Church)  and  told 
Solomon  that  he  had  deserved  the  calamity  by  receiv- 
ing his  kingdom,  which  had  been  given  to  St.  Peter  by 
the  earlier  King  Stephen,  at  the  hand  of  Henry  IV.'' 
Then  Ladislaus  of  Hungary  seized  Dalmatia  and 
sought  to  strengthen  his  position  by  paying  fealty  to 
the  Pope  for  it;  so  that,  when  the  Dalmatians  attempted 
to  recover  their  independence,  Gregory  denounced 
them  as  " rebels  against  the  Blessed  Peter."  ^  Lastly, 
when  the  Russian  king  was  displaced  by  his  brothers, 
and  promised  to  acknowledge  the  feudal  supremacy  of 

'  VII.,  I.  =>  II.,  5  and  32.  3  VIII.,  2. 

<  In  both  statements  of  fact  Gregory  was  wrong.  Stephen  had 
merely  accepted  a  consecrated  banner  from  the  Anti-Pope  Silvester  II.; 
and  Solomon  had  voluntarily  chosen  Henry  as  his  suzerain. 

sVIII.,  4 


158    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Rome  if  he  were  restored,  Gregory  induced  Boleslaus 
of  Poland  to  restore  him. 

If  this  kind  of  procedure  incurred  the  censure  of 
Gregory's  great  friend  and  successor,  Abbot  Didier, 
we  can  easily  understand  the  violent  language  of  his 
opponents.  These  are  usually  writers  of  the  Lombard- 
German  faction,  and  we  must  now  endeavour  to 
disentangle  from  the  contradictory  narratives  of  the  par- 
tisan writers  the  truth  about  his  relations  with  Henry 
IV.  The  facts  I  have  hitherto  given  are  taken  from  the 
authentic  letters  of  Gregory. 

Henry  IV.  was  a  boy  at  the  time  of  his  father's  death, 
and  it  is  beyond  dispute  that  the  prelates  and  nobles 
who  quarrelled  for  power  shamefully  neglected,  or 
consciously  misdirected,  his  education.  When  he  came 
to  the  throne  he  was  a  wilful,  loose-living,  and  imperious 
young  man,  forced  into  marriage  with  a  woman  whom 
he  disliked.  Exhortations  to  abandon  simony  and 
avoid  evil  companions  fell  lightly  on  such  ears,  and,  as 
we  saw,  Gregory's  early  letters  threatened  war.  Five 
of  Henry's  favourites  were  under  sentence  of  excom- 
munication, yet  the  young  King  would  not  part  with 
them.  Gregory  turned  to  the  bishops,  but  they  flatly 
refused  to  allow  his  legates  to  call  a  synod  in  Germany, 
and  his  excommunication  of  the  Archbishop  of  Ham- 
burg only  embittered  them.  Suddenly,  however,  be- 
fore the  end  of  1073,  Gregory  was  delighted  to  receive 
a  most  humble  and  submissive  letter  from  Henry,  and 
legates  were  sent  to  absolve  him. 

The  cause  of  this  action  of  the  imperious  young  King 
gives  us  at  once  a  most  important  clue  to  what  is  called 
the  later  triumph  of  Gregory  at  Canossa.  The  popular 
impression  that  that  famous  scene  represented  a  tri- 
umph of  spiritual  power  over  the  passions  of  man  is 


Hildebrand  159 

wholly  wrong.  It  was  an  episode  in  a  political  struggle. 
Henry's  kingdom  embraced  Saxony  and  Swabia;  and 
the  Saxons  cherished  a  sombre  memory  of  their  recent 
incorporation,  while  Rudolph  of  Swabia  had  a  mind 
to  make  profit  by  the  troubles  of  his  suzerain  and 
astutely  courted  the  favour  of  the  Pope.  Gregory 
could  not  fail  to  grasp  the  situation,  and  his  struggle 
against  Henry  is  a  series  of  attempts  by  the  Pope  to 
foment  and  take  advantage  of  Henry's  difficulties 
with  his  vassals,  ending  in  the  complete  triumph  of 
the  King. 

Henry's  submission  in  1074  meant  that  there  was  a 
dangerous  rebellion  in  Saxony.  The  King  did  not,  in 
fact,  part  entirely  with  his  excommunicated  favourites, 
and  the  anathema  on  them  was  renewed  at  the  synod 
of  1075,  which  also  laid  a  heavy  censure  on  "any  em- 
peror, duke,  marquis,  count,  or  any  temporal  lord,  or 
any  secular  person  whatsoever,"  who  claimed  the  right 
of  investiture.  Henry  remained  friendly:  the  Saxon 
war  dragged  on.  In  October  Henry  was  sending  le- 
gates to  Rome  to  confer  with  the  Pope,  who  had 
hinted  at  compromise  on  the  subject  of  investitures. 
But  the  Saxon  rebellion  suddenly  came  to  an  end, 
and  three  legates  were  now  sent  with  a  less  pleas- 
ant message:  probably  a  peremptory  claim  of  the 
imperial  crown.  Henry  had  not  only  a  united  Ger- 
many, but  a  strong  party  in  Lombardy.  Herlembald 
was  killed,  and  the  Patarenes  held  in  check.  More- 
over, the  recalcitrant  bishops  were  now  joined  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Ravenna  (who  had  been  hastily  ex- 
communicated by  Gregory  for  not  attending  the  Len- 
ten synod)  and  Cardinal  Hugh  Candidus.  Elated 
with  this  support,  the  young  King  acted  wilfully.  He 
sent  one  of  his  excommunicated  nobles  to  Lombardy, 


i6o    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

crushed  the  Patarenes,  and  set  up  a  third  Archbishop 
of  Milan,  Tedald. ' 

Gregory  was  alarmed  at  this  combination  and  at 
first  temporized.  He  invited  Tedald  to  come  to  Rome 
for  a  polite  discussion  of  his  claims;  he  sent  Henry  a 
"doubtful  blessing"  and  would  compromise  on  investi- 
tures and  consider  his  further  demands,  if  he  aban- 
doned the  excommunicated  nobles.^  But  he  gave 
Henry's  envoys,  to  whom  he  handed  the  letter,  a  ver- 
bal message  of  a  more  drastic  nature.  He  threatened 
to  depose  Henry  for  his  "horrible  crimes,"  and  there  is 
good  reason  to  suppose  that  these  "crimes"  were,  in 
part  at  least,  the  slanderous  fictions  of  Henry's  enemies.  ^ 
Both  were  men  of  fiery  and  indiscreet  impulses,  and 
this  impolitic  act  of  Gregory  kindled  the  conflagration. 

Meantime  a  remarkable  experience  befell  Gregory 
at  Rome,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  he  held  Henry 
responsible  for  it;  though  it  is  practically  certain  that 
Henry  was  wholly  innocent.  The  increasing  difficul- 
ties of  the  Pope  encouraged  the  anti-Puritans  at  Rome, 
and  one  of  them,  Cenci,  a  notorious  bandit,  burst  into 
the  church  of  Sta.  Maria  on  the  Esquiline  while  Greg- 
ory was  saying  midnight  mass  there  on  Christmas 
day  (1075).  His  men  scattered  the  attendants,  and 
one  of  them  struck  the  Pope  with  a  sword,  causing  a 
wound  on  the  forehead.  Gregory  was  stripped  of  his 
sacerdotal  robes,  thrust  on  a  horse  behind  one  of  the 

'  There  was  a  Gregorian  archbishop  in  exile.  The  actual  prelate 
may  not  have  been  zealous  enough  for  Henry. 

'  lii.,  10. 

3  A  good  deal  of  controversy  has  been  expended  on  the  question 
whether  Gregory  did  or  did  not  threaten  at  this  stage  to  depose  Henry. 
Gregory's  letter  xxvi.  (not  in  his  Register,  but  of  undoubted  authenticity) 
to  "the  German  People"  expressly  admits,  or  boasts,  that  he  did.  For 
further  evidence  see  Dr.  Martens,  Gregor  VII.,  i.,  86-91. 


Hildebrand  i6i 

soldiers,  and  hurried  to  Cenci's  fortified  tower.  Some 
noble  matron  was  taken  with  him — one  of  the  strangest 
circumstances  of  the  whole  mysterious  episode — and 
she  bound  his  wounds  as  he  lay  in  the  tower,  while 
Cenci  threatened  to  kill  him  unless  he  handed  over  the 
keys  of  the  Papal  treasury.  It  is  fairly  clear  that  the 
motive  was  robbery.  Meantime  the  bells  and  trumpets 
had  spread  the  alarm  through  Rome,  and  the  militia 
beset  the  tower  and  relieved  the  Pope.  This  remark- 
able picture  of  a  winter's  night  in  the  capital  of  Christen- 
dom ends  with  Gregory,  who  cannot  have  been  severely 
wounded,  calmly  returning  to  the  altar  and  finishing 
his  mass. 

Henry's  envoys  had  left  Rome  before  Christmas, 
and  it  is  therefore  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  mes- 
sage they  brought  from  Gregory  had  any  reference  to 
the  violence  of  Cenci.  They  reached  the  court  at 
Goslar  on  January  i,  1076,  and  we  can  easily  believe 
that  they  would  not  moderate  the  offensiveness  of  the 
oral  message.  Gregory  had  a  deliberate  policy  of  pre- 
ferring oral  to  written  messages.  There  may  at  times 
have  been  an  advantage  in  this,  but  in  the  present  in- 
stance it  was  gravely  imprudent.  Henry's  friends  urged 
him  to  avenge  the  insult,  and  three  weeks  later  a  synod 
of  twenty-six  German  bishops,  with  a  large  number  of 
abbots,  met  at  Worms  and  declared  Gregory  deposed. 
The  irregularity  of  his  election,  the  despotism  of  his 
conduct,  and  what  was  described  as  his  scandalous 
association  with  women,  were  the  chief  reasons  assigned 
for  this  action.  The  decree  was  sent  to  the  insurgent 
bishops  of  north  Italy,  who  met  in  council  and  en- 
dorsed it,  and  a  priest  of  the  church  of  Parma  volun- 
teered to  serve  the  sentence  on  Gregory.  He  reached 
Rome  at  a  moment  when  Gregory  was  presiding  at  a 


1 62  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
large  synod  in  the  Lateran  Palace,  and  boldly  read  the 
sentence  to  the  assembled  bishops.  Lay  nobles  drew 
their  swords  upon  the  audacious  priest,  but  Gregory 
restrained  them  and  bade  them  hear  the  words  of  Henry. 
His  intemperate  and  insulting  letter — so  intemperate 
that  the  Pope  could  easily  remain  calm  and  dignified — 
could  receive  only  one  reply.  The  King  and  all  his 
supporters  were  excommunicated,  and  Gregory  issued 
a  not  unworthy  letter  "To  All  Christians"'  informing 
them  that  the  subjects  of  King  Henry  of  Germany 
were  released  from  their  allegiance. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Henry  IV.  had  merited 
a  sentence  of  excommunication,  and  it  is  a  nice  point 
whether  a  King  could  continue  to  rule  his  territory 
when  he  was  thus  cut  off  from  communication  with  his 
subjects.  We  may,  at  all  events,  gravely  question 
whether  the  Pope  was  either  politic  or  just  in  going  on 
formally  to  depose  the  King,  and,  as  the  news  of  this 
unprecedented  action  spread  through  Christendom, 
even  religious  prelates  shook  their  heads.  Throughout 
the  rest  of  his  life  Gregory  had  repeatedly  to  defend 
his  conduct,  not  against  the  partisans  of  Henry,  but 
against  some  of  his  own  supporters.  His  chief  apology 
is  contained  in  a  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Metz^  and 
is  invalid  and  illogical.  He  relies  on  a  forged  letter 
of  St.  Peter,  and  he  appeals  to  the  excommunication 
of  Theodosius  by  St.  Ambrose  and  the  "deposition"  of 
Childeric  by  Pope  Zachary  in  753;  the  former  was  in 
no  sense  a  precedent,  and  in  the  latter  case  the  Pope 
merely  confirmed  the  design  of  Pippin  and  the  Franks. 
There  was  no  precedent  whatever  for  deposition,  and 
Gregory  is  severely  censured  even  by  modem  writers 

'  lii.,  6.  »  Viii.,  21. 


Hildebrand  163 

for  not  observing  the  canonical  forms  in  his  excommuni- 
cation of  Henry." 

Gregory  at  once  prepared  for  war.  The  Duchess 
Beatrice  died  in  April,  and  the  devoted  Mathilda,  who 
was  so  pointedly  insulted,  though  not  named,  in  her 
royal  cousin's  manifesto,  put  the  troops  of  Tuscany 
at  the  Pope's  disposal.  Gregory  also  tried  to  reconcile 
the  Normans  with  each  other  and  weld  them  into  a 
common  army  for  the  defence  of  Rome.  But  his  chief 
reliance  was  on  the  Germans  themselves.  He  knew 
well,  when  he  excommunicated  Henry,  that  the  em- 
bittered Saxons  would  leap  with  joy  at  the  fresh  pre- 
text of  rebellion,  and  the  intriguing  Swabians  would 
secretly  welcome  the  censure.  Henry  found  himself 
very  soon  on  the  road  to  Canossa.  He  summoned  two 
councils  in  rapid  succession,  but  their  defiance  of  the 
Pope  brought  him  little  pleasure  when  he  noted  the 
small  number  of  his  supporters.  Saxony  threw  off 
his  yoke  at  once,  and  prelates  and  nobles  began  to  fall 
away  from  his  cause.  Gregory  pressed  his  advantage 
with  fiery  energy,  showering  letters  upon  the  German 
clergy  and  people,  and  in  the  middle  of  October  a  large 
body  of  the  nobles  and  prelates  (chiefly  Saxon  and 
Swabian)  met  at  Tribur,  near  Darmstadt,  to  consider 
the  position  of  the  kingdom.  Two  Papal  legates  and 
Rudolph  of  Swabia  presided,  and  Henry  watched  the 
proceedings  from  the  other  side  of  the  river. 

From  this  stage  onward  we  are  compelled  to  consult 
the  contemporary  chroniclers,  and  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible to  disentangle  the  truth  from  their  contradictory 
and  mendacious  statements.     It  is  clear  that  for  seven 


'  See  C.  Mirbt's  special  study  of  the  conflict,  Die  Ahsetzung  Heinrichs 
IV.  (1888),  p.  103. 


164  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
days  the  Diet  held  long  debate  on  the  situation.  Un- 
doubtedly they  wished  to  depose  Henry,  but,  appar- 
ently, they  were  unwilling  to  recognize  in  the  Pope 
this  dangerous  power  of  deposing  kings,  and  the  Diet 
seems  to  have  ended  with  an  injunction  to  Henry  to 
make  peace  with  the  Pope.  According  to  the  monk 
Lambert  of  Hersfeld,  who  seems  to  have  gathered  into 
his  Chronicle  all  the  wild  cloister-gossip  of  the  time, 
the  Diet  decided  that,  according  to  the  "Laws  of  the 
Palace, " — there  were  no  such  laws  at  that  time, — Henry 
forfeited  his  crown  if  he  remained  excommunicated  a 
year  and  a  day,  and  commanded  him  to  retire  into 
private  life  at  Spires  until  Gregory  should  come  to 
/    Germany  and  decide  the  case.     The  Gregorian  writer, 

/  Bishop  Bonitho,'  contrives  in  this  instance  to  improve 
on  Lambert;  he  tells  us  that,  if  Henry  submitted,  the 
nobles  would  accompany  him  to  Rome,  where  he  would 
receive  the  imperial  crow^n,  and  they  would  then  sweep 
the  Normans  out  of  south  Italy.  One  suspects  that 
in  this  the  Bishop  of  Sutri  is  betraying  a  design  of 
Gregory  which  was  certainly  not  endorsed  by  the  Diet. 
The  most  authentic  evidence  is  the  Promissio   (or 

-\  Letter  of  Apology)  which,  at  the  dictation  of  the  Diet, 
Henry  submitted  to  the  Pope.^  He  expressed  regret 
for  any  affront  he  may  have  put  on  the  dignity  of  the 
Pope,  promised  obedience  on  spiritual  matters,  and 
declared  that  on  certain  other  grave  matters  he  would 
vindicate  his  innocence.  When  this  short  and  dry 
letter  was  eventually  handed  to  the  Pope  by  one  of  the 
chief  prelates  of  Germany,  Gregory  was  outraged  to 
find  that  its  concluding  sentence  ran:  "But  it  befitteth 


'  Liher  ad  Amicum,  1.  viii. 

'  A  translation  may  be  read  in  Delarc,  iii.,  252. 


Hildebrand  165 

thy  Holiness  not  to  ignore  the  things  repeated  about 
thee  which  bring  scandal  on  the  Church,  but  to  remove 
this  scruple  from  the  public  conscience  and  provide  in/j 
thy  wisdom  for  the  tranquillity  of  the  Church  and  the  | 
kingdom."  Gregorian  writers  insist  that  this  was 
added  by  Henry  to  the  draft  approved  by  the  Diet, 
but  this  is  by  no  means  certain.  Henry  was  not  a 
broken  man.  He  had  a  considerable  force  with  him, 
and  Rudolph  of  Swabia  evidently  found  that  it  would 
be  no  easy  task  to  displace  him.  The  edict  which 
Henry  pubHshed  at  the  same  time,  declaring  that  he 
had  been  misled  when  he  obtained  a  censure  of  the 
Pope,  gives  one  the  same  impression.  He  had  still  a 
powerful  following,  and  it  was  agreed  to  avert  civil 
war  by  reconciliation  and  by  inviting  Gregory  to  preside 
at  a  Diet  at  Augsburg. 

Gregory,  in  spite  of  the  advice  of  his  friends  (except 
Mathilda,  who  spurred  him  on),  at  once  set  out  for  the 
north.  His  impetuous  journey  was,  however,  arrested 
in  the  north  of  Italy  by  the  news  that  the  German 
nobles  had  failed  to  send  an  escort  for  him,  and  that 
Henry  himself  was  crossing  the  Alps  with  a  large  army. 
Mathilda  persuaded  him  to  retire  to  her  impregnable 
fortress  of  Canossa,  and  there,  about  the  end  of  Janu- 
ary, Henry  enacted  his  historic  part  of  penitent. 

Here  the  chroniclers  are  hopelessly  discordant,  and 
the  full  picturesque  narrative  of  Lambert  of  Hersfeld, 
on  which  some  historians  still  implicitly  rely,  has  been 
riddled  by  modern  critics.^  It  is  clear  that  Henry 
wished  to  keep  the  Pope  out  of  Germany,  and  he  there- 

•  One  recent  student,  Dr.  Albert  Dammann  {Der  Sieg  Heinrichs  IV. 
in  Kanossa,  1907  and  1909),  goes  to  the  other  extreme,  and  concludes 
that  Henry  blockaded  Canossa  with  a  large  army  and  compelled  the 
Pope  to  withdraw  his  censure,  without  a  single  act  of  penance. 


1 66    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

fore  hastily  crossed  the  Alps  in  the  depth  of  winter.  It 
is  clear  that  a  "vast  army"  (in  the  words  of  Lambert 
himself)  gathered  about  him  in  rebellious  Lombardy, 
but  he  pushed  on  with  a  few  followers  (incidentally 
admitted  by  Lambert)  to  Canossa.  It  is  clear  that 
Gregory,  on  the  other  hand,  was  desperately  bent  on 
presiding  over  a  council  in  Germany,  and  shocked  his 
friends  by  his  obstinacy  in  refusing  to  be  reconciled ' ; 
he  had  condemned  Henry  without  trial,  but  he  would 
not  absolve  him  without  trial.  And,  obviously  in- 
accurate as  the  narrative  of  Lambert  is,^  it  seems  to  me 
certain  that  Henry  went  through  the  form  of  penance 
on  the  icy  platform  before  the  gate  of  Canossa.  In  the 
letter  written  immediately  afterwards  to  the  nobles 
and  prelates  of  Germany,^  Gregory  describes  Henry 
as  doing  penance  for  three  days,  in  bare  feet  and  wool- 
len robe,  before  the  gates.  However  impolitic  and  irri- 
tating it  was  for  Gregory  to  write  such  a  letter.  Dr. 
Dammann  seems  to  me  to  fail  to  impeach  its  genuine- 
ness. Indeed  in  his  great  speech  to  the  Roman  synod 
of  1080,  when  he  excommunicated  Henry  a  second 
time,  Gregory  says  that  in  1076  Henry  came  to  him 
"in  confusion  and  humiliation"  at  Canossa  to  ask 
absolution. 

Thus  the  scene  which  has  ever  since  impressed  the 
im.agination  of  Europe  is  in  substance  authentic; 
though  we  are  by  no  means  compelled  to  think  that 
Henry  literally  stood  in  the  snow  for  three  whole  days. 
But  the  common  interpretation  of  the  scene  is  quite 

'  Ep.,  iv.,  12. 

^  For  instance  he  describes  a  dramatic  scene  in  which  Henry  shrinks 
from  receiving  the  sacred  host,  whereas  Gregory  says  {Ep.,  iv.,  12)  that 
he  admitted  Henry  to  communion.     His  story  is  full  of  contradictions. 

3  Iv.,  12. 


Hildebrand  167 

false.  It  was  not  a  spiritual  triumph,  but  a  political 
pseudo- triumph.  In  reality,  it  was  Henry  who  tri- 
umphed; and  one  can  imagine  him  jesting  merrily 
afterwards  about  his  bare  feet  and  coarse  robe  of  pen- 
itence. He  promised  to  amend  his  ways,  and  then 
proceeded  to  make  a  tour  of  Italy  in  light-hearted  con- 
fidence and  with  all  his  old  wilfulness.  He  refused  to 
interfere  when  a  Papal  Legate  was  thrown  into  prison 
at  Piacenza ;  and  he  refused  to  provide  Gregory  with  an 
escort  when  the  Germans  invited  the  Pope  to  come  and 
preside  at  their  new  Diet.'  Gregory  soon  realized  that 
the  war  had  merely  passed  into  a  new  and  more  difficult 
phase,  and  we  must  follow  it  swiftly  to  its  tragic  end 
in  the  utter  defeat  of  the  Pope. 

Gregory  sent  two  Legates  to  the  Diet  of  Forchheim 
on  March  13th,  where,  with  their  consent,  Rudolph 
of  Swabia  was  declared  King  of  Germany.  The  Papal 
Legates  exacted  that  he  should  not  claim  the  succession 
for  his  family — apparently  Germany  was  to  be  the  next 
fief  of  the  Roman  See — and  should  abandon  investi- 
ture. When  Henry  pressed  the  Pope  to  excommunicate 
Rudolph,  he  replied  that  he  had  not  yet  heard  Rudolph's 
case — an  "unworthy  subterfuge,"  Bishop  Mathew 
justly  remarks — and  Henry  set  out  for  Germany.  In 
the  three-years  struggle  which  followed,  the  Pope 
adopted  a  policy  which  few  historians  hesitate  to  con- 
demn. He  sent  Legates  repeatedly,  claiming  that  he 
alone  was  the  judge:  that  "if  the  See  of  the  Blessed 

'  Gregorian  writers  said  afterwards  that  Henry's  royal  dignity  was 
not  restored  at  Canossa.  In  point  of  fact  he  actually  signed  his  pro- 
mise of  reform  as  "king"  and  he  refused  to  take  an  oath  on  the  express 
ground  that  the  word  of  a  king  of  Germany  sufficed.  Gregory  made 
no  complaint  on  this  score  until  years  afterwards,  though  Henry  re- 
sumed his  royal  character  the  moment  he  left  Canossa. 


1 68    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Peter  decides  and  judges  heavenly  and  spiritual  things, 
how  much  the  more  shall  it  judge  things  earthly  and 
secular."'  He  even  promised  the  crown  to  whichever 
of  the  combatants  should  respect  his  Legates:  a  remark- 
able test  of  the  justice  he  promised  to  administer. 
He  evidently  hoped  that  Rudolph  would  win,  but 
feared  that  the  victory  might  fall  to  Henry;  and,  above 
all,  he  desired  to  judge  the  princes  of  the  earth.  At 
last  the  Saxons  in  turn  began  to  abuse  him.  His  Le- 
gates, they  said,  were  offering  his  verdict  to  the  highest 
bidder — assuredly  without  his  knowledge — and  his 
policy  was  unintelligible.  Bishops  were  saying  that 
the  Papacy  had  become  "the  tail  of  the  Church." 

At  the  Lenten  synod  of  the  year  1080  representatives 
of  both  princes  came  before  Gregory  and  his  bishops, 
and  the  great  decision  was  taken.  Henry  was  found 
guilty  of  "disobedience,"  and,  after  a  long  and  eloquent 
speech,  Gregory  excommunicated  him  once  more  and 
confirmed  Rudolph  in  the  kingdom  of  Germany. 
Bishop  Bonitho^  tells  us  that  Henry  had  sent  an  ulti- 
matum: if  Gregory  did  not  at  once  condemn  Rudolph 
he  would  appoint  another  Pope.  This  is,  apparently, 
the  real  inspiration  of  the  synod  and  of  Gregory's  fiery 
speech.^  Henry's  partisans  retorted  by  excommuni- 
cating Gregory  and  consecrating  Guibert  of  Ravenna 
as  Anti-Pope,  and,  as  Rudolph  fell  in  battle  in  October, 
the  Gregorian  cause  was  in  a  lamentable  plight.  Greg- 
ory had,  in  his  extremity,  overlooked  all  the  crimes 
of  Robert  Guiscard — "for  the  present"   he  quaintly 

'  Iv.,  24.  '  Bk.  ix. 

3  It  may  be  read  in  Migne,  vol.  cxlviii.,  col.  816.  It  includes  the 
imprecation  on  Henry,  "May  he  gain  no  victory  as  long  as  he  lives," 
and  again  asserts  that  all  honours  and  powers  are  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Pope. 


Hildebrand  169 

said  in  the  treaty — and  made  an  alliance  with  him, 
but  Robert  was  still  engaged  in  the  East,  and  Henry's 
troops  made  great  havoc  in  Mathilda's  dominions. 
Yet  Gregory  repeated  his  excommunication  of  the 
King,  and  wrote  letters  all  over  Europe  to  defend  his 
action  and  obtain  money  and  troops. 

Several  years  passed  in  this  indecisive  warfare, 
Henry  wearing  down  the  Tuscan  troops  and  cutting 
off  supplies  from  Rome.  At  length,  toward  the  end 
of  March,  1084,  the  Romans,  weary  of  the  long  siege, 
opened  their  gates  to  Henry,  and  Gregory  shut  himself 
in  the  impregnable  fortress  of  Sant'  Angelo.  From  the 
windows,  for  two  dreary  months,  Gregory  had  to  watch 
the  progress  of  the  victorious  Imperialists  and  the 
triumph  of  the  Anti-Pope,  Clement  IH.  In  May  he 
was  elated  by  the  message  that  Henry  had  fled  and 
Robert  Guiscard  was  marching  to  Rome  with  a  large 
force.  But  his  joy  was  brief.  A  brawl  with  the 
Romans  let  loose  the  half-barbaric  Normans,  and  the 
city  was  visited  with  one  of  the  most  pitiless  raids  in 
its  eventful  history.  Thousands  of  the  Romans  were 
sold  into  slavery:  sacred  virgins  and  matrons  were 
savagely  raped:  large  districts  of  the  city  were  burned 
to  the  ground.  For  this  the  infuriated  Romans  cast 
the  whole  blame  on  the  Pope,  and  he  was  forced  to 
retire  with  Robert.  In  penury  and  impotence  he  rode 
into  the  abbey  of  Monte  Cassino,  where  Abbot  Didier 
would  hardly  fail  to  remind  him  that  they  who  appeal 
to  the  sword  are  apt  to  perish  by  the  sword,  and  then 
on  to  Salerno.  Surrounded  by  the  shrunken  remains 
of  his  supporters  he  made  a  last  appeal  to  the  Christian 
world  to  espouse  his  cause,  and  he  feebl}^  cast  forth 
his  last  anathemas.  But  the  fight  was  lost,  and  he 
wearily  drew  his  last  breath  on  May  25,   1085.     "I 


170    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

have  loved  justice  and  hated  iniquity,  therefore  I  die 
in  exile,"  he  said.  It  was  not  wholly  true.  He  was 
exiled  by  the  people  of  Rome,  whose  devastated  homes 
imade  them  heap  curses  on  his  iron  policy.  History 
'honours  the  purity  of  his  ultimate  aim,  the  heroism 
with  which  he  pursued  it,  the  greatness,  with  all  its 
defects,  of  his  character;  it  sternly  condemns  the  means 
he  employed,  the  tortuous  and  dangerous  character  of 
his  reasoning,  the  appalling  claim  that  kingdoms  v  ere 
toys  in  his  hand.  He  failed;  but  he  had,  in  reality, 
so  strengthened  the  frame  of  the  Papacy  that  it  would 
take  an  earthquake  to  shake  it. 


CHAPTER  IX 

INNOCENT  III.:  THE  PAPAL  ZENITH 

THAT  Papal  policy  or  ideal  of  which  we  have  traced 
the  development  in  the  minds  of  the  greater 
Popes  attains  its  fullest  expansion  during  the  Pontificate 
of  Innocent  III.  Historians  usually  assign  the  year 
1300  as  the  date  of  the  culmination  of  the  Papal  system, 
but  it  had  in  reaHty  attained  its  full  stature  under  In- 
nocent III.  It  did  indeed  make  its  last  impressive 
display  of  world-power  under  Boniface  VIII.,  but  there 
had  been  no  material  contribution  to  its  frame  since 
the  death  of  Innocent,  and  the  thirteenth  century  had 
fostered  the  growth  of  the  influences  which  were  de- 
stined to  undo  it.  In  the  fourteenth  century  came 
the  demoralizing  residence  in  Avignon  and  the  Great 
Schism:  in  the  fifteenth  century  the  renaissance  of 
culture  and  development  of  civic  life,  which  enfeebled 
the  Popes  and  strengthened  their  subjects,  were  com- 
pleted: in  the  sixteenth  century  Luther  and  Calvin 
smote  the  colossus.  Innocent  III.  is  the  last  great 
maker  of  the  Papacy. 

The  work  of  the  eighteen  Popes  who  occupied  the 
throne  between  the  death  of  Gregory  VII,  and  the 
election  of  Innocent  might  not  ineptly  be  described  in 
a  line:  they  sought,  and  failed,  to  wield  the  heavy 
weapons    of    Hildcbrand.     In    virtue   of    the    falsified 

171 


1/2  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
letters,  canons,  charters,  and  chronicles  which  were 
now  accepted  throughout  Europe,  they  proclaimed 
that  they  had  the  disposal  of  earthly  kingdoms  no  less 
than  of  seats  in  heaven,  and  they  thus  brought  on 
themselves  a  century  of  strife  in  which  only  the  stronger 
men  could  find  much  time  for  strictly  Pontifical  duties. 
They  were  men  of  sober  life  and,  generally,  high  char- 
acter, yet  the  very  nature  of  their  ideal  involved  such 
struggles  that  the  Papacy  had  to  await  a  fortunate 
conjunction  of  circumstances  before  the  ideal  could  be 
realized.  The  conflict  with  Henry  IV.  continued  until, 
his  two  sons  having  been  persuaded  to  rebel  against 
him  and  his  second  wife  encouraged  to  besmirch  his 
reputation,  before  the  assembled  prelates  of  Christen- 
dom, with  charges  as  foul  as  they  were  feeble  in  evi- 
dence, he,  in  1097,  quitted  Italy  for  ever.  Then  Urban 
IL,  who  was  responsible  for  this  gross  travesty  of 
spiritual  justice,  cleared  Rome  by  means  of  Norman 
swords  and  rallied  Christendom  about  him  by  a  de- 
claration of  the  First  Crusade.  But  so  tainted  a  legacy 
of  peace  could  not  last.  Henry  V.  proved  more  exact- 
ing than  his  father,  and  another  prolonged  struggle 
absorbed  the  energy  of  the  Popes  until  the  fifty  years' 
war  over  investiture  was  settled  by  a  compromise  at 
Worms  in  1122.' 

Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  rather  than  the  successive 
Popes,  was  the  spiritual  master  of  Europe  in  the  com- 
parative peace  after  Worms.  During  nearly  the  whole 
of  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century  the  Papacy 

'  The  clergy  were  to  be  free  to  elect  their  bishop,  though  in  Germany 
the  election  had  to  take  place  in  the  presence  of  the  Emperor  or  his 
representatives;  this  was  a  virtual  retention  of  the  imperial  veto.  In- 
vestiture with  ring  and  crozier  was  replaced  by  a  touch  with  the  royal 
sceptre. 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        173 

was  distracted  by  the  incessant  revolts  of  the  Romans. 
The  streets,  even  the  churches,  of  Rome  were  stained 
with  blood,  year  after  year,  and  the  Popes  repeatedly 
fled.  The  rise  of  Frederic  Barbarossa  complicated 
the  struggle,  and  the  Popes  had  little  opportunity  to 
exercise  the  powers  they  had  won,  without  thinking  of 
any  extension  of  their  claims.  At  last,  in  1198,  the 
Papacy  once  more  fell  to  a  man  of  commanding  per- 
sonahty  and  was  lifted  to  the  zenith  of  its  power. 

Lothario  de'Conti  di  Segni  was  born  about  the  year 
1 1 60.  His  father  was  Count  Trasimondo  of  Segni: 
his  mother  belonged  to  the  noble  Roman  family  of  the 
Scotti,  which  included  several  cardinals  of  the  anti- 
Imperialist  school.  After  receiving  an  elementary 
education  at  Rome,  he  was  sent  to  Paris  for  theology, 
and  to  Bologna  for  law.  The  scholastic  movement 
was  now  stimulating  Europe  and  creating  great  schools; 
indeed  Pope  Alexander  III.  had,  though  not  from  cul- 
tural motives,  fostered  the  movement  by  favouring 
the  activity  of  free  teachers.  Profane  letters  were, 
however,  still  little  cultivated.  Lothario  took  a  degree 
in  the  liberal  arts,  but  he  was  soon  wholly  absorbed  in 
theology  and  canon  law;  the  correct  and  virile  Latin 
of  his  letters  is  very  far  from  the  classical  models. 
Under  the  Pontificate  of  his  maternal  uncle,  Clement 
IIL,  he  returned  to  Rome  a  young  man  of  the  most 
ascetic  character  and  most  finished  ecclesiastical  cul- 
ture. He  was  made  a  canon  of  St.  Peter's,  and,  in  his 
twenty-ninth  year,  a  cardinal  of  the  Roman  Church. 

The  Pontificate  of  Clement  ended,  apparently,  the 
long  struggle  of  the  Popes  and  the  Romans.  The 
Roman  nobles  were  as  turbulent  as  ever,  but  one  finds 
a  more  respectable  element  of  dissension  in  the  city 
at  this  time.     The  democratic  ideas  of  that  brilliant 


174    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

and  too  little  appreciated  thinker,  Arnold  of  Brescia, 
had  taken  root  in  Rome,  and  a  Republic,  with  a  Senate 
of  fifty-six  members,  had  been  established  in  the  Capi- 
tol. Hadrian  IV.  had  blighted  this  premature  experi- 
ment by  an  interdict  in  1 155,  but  the  struggle  continued 
and  the  Popes  lived  little  in  the  capital  until  the  year 
1 188.  Clement,  a  courtly  and  diplomatic  Roman, 
made  peace  with  his  countrymen,  and  damped  the 
democratic  ardour  by  a  shower  of  gold  and  of  eccles- 
iastical favours.  The  Papacy  resumed  the  govern- 
ment of  the  city,  and  the  nominal  power  of  the  Senate 
was  allowed  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  one  man,  "the 
Senator."  Clement  died  in  1190,  and,  as  his  successor, 
Celestine  III.,  was  a  member  of  the  Orsini  family,  which 
was  bitterly  hostile  to  the  Scotti,  there  was  no  room  in 
the  Lateran  for  Lothario  Conti.  Nepotism  was  now  so 
far  accepted  in  the  Papal  palace  that  we  shall  find 
Innocent  himself  following  the  tradition.  The  leisure 
was  fortunate  in  one  respect,  as  Lothario  used  it  for 
the  purpose  of  writing  a  book,  On  Contempt  of  the  World, 
which  gives  us  a  most  interesting  revelation  of  his  in- 
nermost thoughts  at  the  time  when  he  became  Pope. 
The  book  is  a  distillation  of  the  extreme  monastic 
views  of  the  time;  it  is  full  of  fables,  and  it  depicts 
man  as  the  very  vilest  thing  in  a  world  which  was  made 
solely  for  the  disdain  of  the  ascetic.  It  was  from  this 
morbidly  tinted  sanctuary  that  Lothario  Conti  surveyed 
the  life  of  his  time,  which  he  was  soon  summoned  to 
rule.  In  September,  1197,  Henry  VI.,  who  had  duly 
incurred  the  imperial  legacy  of  excommunication,  died 
and  left  his  kingdom  to  his  baby -boy  Frederic:  and 
on  January  8,  1198,  Lothario  Conti,  in  the  prime  of 
life  and  the  most  sombre  stage  of  his  meditations,  be- 
came Innocent  III. 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        175 

Although  he  occupied  the  Papal  throne  only  eighteen 
years,  we  have  more  than  five  thousand  letters,  or 
parts  of  letters,  dispatched  by  him  to  all  parts  of  Chris- 
tendom: more  than  five  hundred  of  them  were  written 
in  the  first  year  of  his  Pontificate.  Their  range  stretches 
from  Ireland  and  Scandinavia  to  Cairo  and  Armenia. 
In  that  vast  territory  nothing  of  importance  happened 
in  which  he  did  not  intervene ;  and  there  was  hardly  a 
prince  or  baron  whom  he  did  not  excommunicate,  or 
any  leading  country  which  he  did  not  place  under 
interdict.  His  ideal  was  that  of  Gregory  VII.:  the 
Papal  States  of  Europe — he  wanted  to  add  nearer  Asia 
— trembling  under  the  Roman  rod.  Writing  to  the  Em- 
peror of  Constantinople  he  elaborated  his  famous  con- 
ception of  earthly  empire  as  the  moon,  shining  faintly 
by  light  borrowed  from  the  spiritual  power.  The 
Papal  theory  had  reached  its  culmination,  and  we  may 
proceed  at  once  to  attempt  to  compress  the  portentous 
activity  of  Innocent  III.  into  a  few  compartments.^ 

One  naturally  inquires  first  how  this  spiritual  auto- 
crat confronted  the  democratic  faction  at  Rome.  At  the 
outset  he  showed  a  little  of  the  accommodating  tem- 
per which  he  always  held  in  reserve  behind  his  profes- 
sion of  rigour.  His  attendants  flung  showers  of  coin 
on  the  greedy  people  when  he  first  passed  between  them, 
and,  reluctantly,  and  on  the  lowest  known  scale,  he 
distributed  the  backsheesh  with  which  each  incoming 

'  Fortunately,  his  work  is  little  complicated  by  dispute,  since  his 
letters  are  so  abundant.  There  is  a  contemporary  life  or  panegyric 
{Gesta  Innoceiitii  Terlii),  but  it  must  be  read  with  caution.  Of  modern 
biographies  the  great  work  of  Achille  Luchaire  (6  vols.,  1904-8)  has 
superseded  all  others;  though,  as  it  scarcely  ever  indicates  its  author- 
ities, the  less  discriminating  work  of  Hurter  is  still  useful.  In  English 
there  is  a  good,  but  rather  afifected,  sketch  by  C.  H.  C.  Pirie-Gordon, 
Innocent  the  Great  (1907).     Milman  is  particularly  good  on  Innocent  III. 


176    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Pope  had  to  win  the  smiles  of  every  official  in  the 
Palace  and  the  city.  There  were  murmurs,  and  they 
increased  when  he  proceeded  to  compel  the  Prefect 
(who  was  understood  to  represent  the  Empire)  and  the 
Senator  (who  represented  the  Romans)  to  take  oaths 
of  allegiance  to  himself.  By  this  stroke  he  expelled 
the  last  bit  of  reality  out  of  the  "free  commune"  of 
Rome,  and  cast  off  the  last  trace  of  an  imperial  yoke. 
He  abolished  the  Noble  Guard  and  the  lay  officials  of 
the  Palace:  he  deposed  the  judges  appointed  by  the 
Senator  and  appointed  less  corrupt  men:  he  drove  the 
money-changers  and  merchants  out  of  the  Lateran 
courtyard,  stamped  on  the  parasites  who  fed  on  foreign 
pilgrims,  and  drew  up  a  strict  tariff  of  fees  for  the  Papal 
services.  Pie  was  by  no  means  indifferent  to  money, 
as  his  fighting  policy  demanded  enormous  sums.  No 
Pope  could  be  keener  on  Peter's  Pence,  and  no  abbot 
or  bishop  dare  approach  him  with  a  gift  not  proportion- 
ate to  his  wealth.  But  it  is  almost  superfluous  to  say 
that  he  was  a  man  of  the  most  rigorous  sentiment  of 
justice,  and,  as  long  as  he  lived,  the  more  selfish  kind 
of  rapacity  at  Rome  was  repressed. 

The  nobles  who  led  the  democratic  party,  chiefly 
Giovanni  Pierleone  and  Giovanni  Capocci,  looked  with 
concern  on  his  tendency  and,  when  he  put  a  Papal 
governor  over  the  Maremma  and  the  Sabina,  instead 
of  the  one  appointed  by  the  Senate,  they  pressed  the 
Romans  to  see  that  their  privileges  were  being  stolen. 
In  1200  Innocent  extricated  himself  from  a  difficult 
situation.  Vitorchiano  was  threatened  by  Vitcrbo 
and  declared  itself  a  Papal  fief.  As  Viterbo  also  was 
part  of  the  patrimony,  and  the  Romans  hated  it,  In- 
nocent was  perplexed.  The  Romans  took  the  field  in 
spite  of  him,  and  won;  but,  as  he  happened  to  be  saying 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        177 

mass  at  the  time  of  the  victory,  it  was  ingeniously  as- 
cribed to  his  prayers.  In  the  following  year,  however, 
there  was  more  serious  trouble.  Two  small  provincial 
nobles  took  possession  of  some  estates  on  the  Campagna, 
and,  when  Innocent  ordered  them  to  restore,  they  said 
that  they  held  them  of  the  democratic  leaders,  Pier- 
leone  and  Capocci.  There  was  an  outcry,  but  Inno- 
cent sent  his  troops  to  lay  waste  the  properties  of  the 
two  nobles  in  the  grimmest  mediaeval  manner,  and,  in 
an  eloquent  speech  at  Rome,  completely  vanquished 
his  critics.  Then  in  1202,  during  his  customary  summer 
absence,  the  feud  of  the  Scotti  and  the  Orsini  broke 
out  with  frightful  violence,  and  in  the  following  year 
the  antagonism  to  the  Pope  reached  its  height. 

Innocent  had,  for  his  own  protection,  greatly  en- 
riched his  brother  Ricardo,  and  Ricardo  had  purchased 
the  mortgages  on  the  estates  of  one  of  the  democrats, 
Oddo  Poli.  As  far  as  we  can  see,  Ricardo  acted  with 
legal  correctness,  but  Rome  was  soon  aroused  by  the 
sight  of  Poli  and  his  friends  coming  naked  to  church,  as 
a  symbol  of  the  "spoliation,"  and  democratic  rhetoric 
rose  to  white  heat.  There  was  a  popular  rising;  Ri- 
cardo's  towering  mansion  was  burned,  and  Innocent 
himself  had  to  fly  to  Ferentino  (May,  1203).  The 
Romans  restored  their  Senate,  and  swore  to  have  no 
more  of  this  Papal  nepotism  and  despotism,  but  from 
his  retreat  Innocent  fostered  the  intestine  quarrels 
of  the  victorious  people,  and  before  long  the  city  was 
in  a  state  of  murderous  anarchy.  The  two  hundred 
mansions  of  its  wealthier  citizens  were,  and  had  been 
for  ages,  real  fortresses,  and  during  the  whole  summer 
of  1203  their  castellated  walls  were  lined  with  archers, 
and  bands  issued  forth,  with  all  the  engines  of  war,  to 
assault  and  burn  the  fortress  of  some  neighbour.     It 


-^ 


1/8    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

still  remains  for  some  historian  of  the  Papacy  to  explain 
this  chronic  violence  and  vice  in  the  centre  of  Christen- 
dom during  so  many  centuries.  The  trouble  ended  in 
the  Pope  resuming  the  government  of  the  city,  and  his 
rule  was  further  disturbed  only  by  one  of  these  popular 
revolts,  in  1208. 

We  do  not  fully  appreciate  the  strength  of  Innocent 
unless  we  realize  how,  while  his  eyes  wandered  over  the 
globe,  Rome  itself  demanded  so  much  attention.  But 
he  was  not  merely  concerned  with  its  misconduct.  He 
organized  the  work  of  charity  in  the  city  and  did  some- 
thing to  promote  its  commerce.  He  built  a  foundling 
hospital,  trusting  to  reduce  the  infanticide  which  he 
found  so  common  at  Rome,  and  was  very  generous  to 
the  churches  and  the  clergy.  From  his  time  the  Popes 
began  to  use  more  and  more  the  Palace  beside  St. 
Peter's,  which  he  enlarged  and  fortified,  and  he  spent 
large  sums  in  adorning  other  churches  and  enhancing 
the  splendour  of  the  worship.  But  these  and  the  other 
Roman  reforms  I  have  mentioned  are  the  mere  inci- 
dents of  his  domestic  life,  so  to  say.  His  work  was  the 
ruling  of  the  world,  and  assuredly  we  must  recognize  a 
mind  of  high  quality  and  prodigious  energy  when  we 
read  the  volumes  of  letters  that  poured  from  the  Lat- 
eran  during  those  eighteen  years,  and  imagine  the  vast 
crowds  that  came  from  every  part  of  the  world  to  do 
homage,  to  ask  counsel,  and  to  report  the  minutest 
circumstances  of  their  abbeys  or  bishoprics  or  princi- 
palities. 

Italy  alone  might  have  absorbed  a  weaker  man  during 
his  earlier  years.  Papal  rule  was  acknowledged — in 
the  manner  we  have  seen — only  in  the  immediate  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  city.  Over  the  south  and  Sicily  the 
widow  of  Henry  VI.  ruled  in  the  name  of  her  child: 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        179 

in  the  north  were  the  leagues  of  free  cities,  and  the 
isolated  free  cities,  which  had  won  independence:  and 
the  whole  country  apart  from  these  was  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  German  generals  whom  Henry  VI.  had 
left  there  at  his  death.  Innocent,  like  all  the  Popes 
after  Hadrian,  believed  in  the  Donation  of  Constantine, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  Donations  of  Pippin  and  Charle- 
magne and  Otto  and  Mathilda.  Italy  belonged  almost 
entirely  to  the  Papacy,  and  must  be  recovered.  Some 
historians  hail  Innocent  as  a  great  apostle  of  the  "Italia 
Una"  ideal,  and  he  sometimes  presses  on  particular 
towns  "the  interests  of  the  whole  of  Italy."  It  is, 
however,  absurd  to  associate  his  feeling  with  the  later 
ideal  of  Italian  unity.  He  cared  for  the  unity  of  Italy 
only  in  the  sense  that  the  Pope  was  to  be  its  unique 
ruler.  Those  Germans — he  scorns  them — must  be 
driven  out.  Those  free  cities,  always  at  war  with 
each  other,  must  be  persuaded  that  the  Papal  seal  will 
be  their  best  protection.  Even  that  kingdom  of  Naples 
and  Sicily  must  somehow  pass  under  Rome;  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  Innocent  had  solemnly  accepted  the  guar- 
dianship of  the  young  king. 

It  is  commonly  said  that  the  German  generals  in 
Italy,  like  Markwald  of  Anweiler,  were  ferocious  adven- 
turers eager  only  to  carve  little  principalities  for  them- 
selves out  of  the  helpless  country.  This  is  the  partisan 
version  left  us  by  Innocent's  anonymous  biographer. 
They  were,  with  German  troops,  guarding  the  Empire 
for  the  successor  of  Henry  VI.;  they  acknowledged 
Philip  of  Swabia;  and  Innocent  was  at  a  later  date 
"warned"  by  an  influential  group  of  German  prelates 
and  nobles  not  to  interfere  with  them.  But  Innocent 
had  several  advantages.  Henry  VI.  had  treated  Italy 
with  barbarity,  and  numbers  of  cities  threw  off  the 


i8o    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

German  yoke  when  he  died;  on  the  other  hand,  Mark- 
wald  and  his  colleagues  were  iinder  standing  sentence 
of  excommunication  for  occupying  Papal  fiefs  like 
Tuscany.  Innocent  began  by  sending  men  and  money 
to  the  revolted  cities,  and  inviting  them  to  put  them- 
selves under  Rome's  sacred  banner.  He  travelled 
through  central  Italy  in  1198,  and  received  the  al- 
legiance of  many  towns.  Markwald,  the  chief  enemy, 
was  driven  to  the  south,  and  Innocent  pressed  the  south- 
erners to  rise  against  him. 

Here  the  Pope  had  the  familiar  advantage  of  Papal 
policy — a  woman  on  the  throne — and  he  made  a  use  of 
it  that  cannot  very  well  be  defended.  Henry's  Norman 
widow,  Constance,  was  not  unwilling  to  break  her 
connection  with  Germany,  and  she  seems  to  have  had 
little  appreciation  of  the  political  meaning  of  making 
Sicily  a  fief  of  the  Roman  See.  She  was  very  ill  and 
distracted,  and  no  doubt  felt  that  she  was  consulting 
the  interest  of  her  son  in  putting  him  and  the  kingdom 
(of  Sicily  and  Naples)  under  Papal  charge.  She  did 
indeed  hesitate  when  Innocent  told  her  the  price  of  his 
protection.  Sicily  was  to  sacrifice  all  the  privileges 
which  William  I.  had  wrung  from  the  Papacy,  to  pay 
an  annual  tribute  to  Rome,  and  to  render  feudal  ser- 
vice whenever  required.^  But  Constance  was  forced  to 
yield,  and  she  died  soon  afterwards  (November  27, 
1 1 98),  appointing  Innocent  the  guardian  of  her  son 
and  allotting  him  an  annual  fee  of  thirty  thousand 
gold  pieces. 

Innocent  accepted  the  guardianship  of  Frederic,  and 
historians  comment  severely  on  his  next  step.  In 
spite  of  all  his  fiery  letters  to  the  southern  clergy  and 
people — even  to  the  Saracens* — inciting  them  to  resist 

'  Ep.,  i.,  410.  » li.,  226. 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        i8i 

the  Germans,  Markwald  made  considerable  progress. 
Then  there  came  to  Rome  a  certain  French  adventurer 
named  Walter  de  Brienne,  who  had  married  a  daughter 
of  Tancred  of  Sicily.  Tancred  had,  on  resigning 
Sicily,  retained  Lecce  and  Tarentum,  and  Walter 
claimed  these  as  his  wife's  inheritance.  Whether  or 
no  Innocent  had  actually  promoted  the  marriage  and 
invited  Walter  to  Italy  ^  we  cannot  confidently  say, 
but  it  was  assuredly  dangerous  to  let  such  a  man  get 
a  footing  in  southern  Italy;  it  was  probable  enough 
that  he  would  eventually  claim  the  whole  kingdom 
taken  from  Tancred.  However  Innocent  blessed  and 
financed  his  enterprise,  on  the  formal  condition  that 
he  would  respect  the  rights  of  Frederic,  and  soon  had 
a  French  troop  waging  more  effective  war  upon  the 
Germans.  The  struggle  ceased  with  the  death  of 
Markwald  in  1202,  and  of  Walter  in  1205,  and  Innocent 
then  pressed  a  design  of  marrying  the  young  Frederic 
to  Constanza  of  Aragon.  For  the  time  Frederic's  rights 
were  respected,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  these 
early  years  spent  amidst  intrigue  and  treachery  con- 
tributed to  the  development  of  his  anti-clerical  spirit. 
There  was,  in  fact,  a  good  deal  of  anti-clericalism 
growing  in  Italy.  The  development  of  civic  and  com- 
munal life  and  the  comparative  enlightenment  which 
was  spreading  turned  many  critical  eyes  on  the  Roman 
system.  Heresy  descended  the  Alps  and  found  favour 
in  the  free  cities;  even,  at  times,  in  Papal  cities.  I  have 
described  how  Viterbo  was  crushed  by  the  Roman 
troops.  Innocent  intervened  in  its  favour,  after  its 
defeat,  and  he  was  then  outraged  to  learn  that  Viterbo 
was,  like  many  other  cities,  appointing  heretics  (the 

'  This  is  affirmed  in  the  contemporary  Chronique  d'Ernoul  et  de  Ber- 
nard le  Tresorier,  ch.  xxx. 


1 82    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Cathari)  to  high  places.  He  spent  the  summer  of 
1207  in  Viterbo,  and  enforced  very  stringent  rules  for 
the  repression  of  heresy.  These  laws  were  extended 
to  all  the  Papal  dominions,  but  we  shall  see  the  Pope's 
attitude  more  clearly  when  we  deal  with  the  crusade 
against  the  Albigensians.  Innocent  was  not  less  em- 
phatic in  denouncing  the  incessant  wars  of  the  rival 
cities,  and  his  correspondence  is  largely  occupied  with 
his  endeavours  to  secure  their  feudal  allegiance  to 
Rome. 

A  graver  problem,  in  the  solution  of  which  his  char- 
acter is  often  obscured,  was  presented  by  the  struggle 
of  Ghibellines  (or  followers  of  Philip  of  Swabia)  and 
Guelphs  (supporters  of  Otto  of  Brunswick)  for  the  im- 
perial crown.  Frederic,  the  son  and  heir  of  Henry,  be- 
ing still  a  boy  of  tender  3^ears,  his  uncle  Duke  Philip 
of  Swabia  desired  to  keep  the  crown  securely  in  the 
Hohenstauifen  family  by  wearing  it  himself.  Otto 
of  Brunswick  also  made  a  fantastic  claim  to  it,  got 
himself  proclaimed  Emperor  at  Cologne  in  1198,  and 
sought  the  support  of  the  Pope.  Innocent  undoubt- 
edly favoured  from  the  start  the  baseless  claim  of  Otto. 
The  Papacy  had  come  to  regard  the  Hohenstauffens 
almost  as  hereditary  foes,  and  Philip  actually  lay  under 
sentence  of  excommunication  for  holding  the  territory 
bequeathed  by  Mathilda  to  the  Papacy;  while  Otto 
flattered  the  Pope  by  professions  of  loyalty  and  docility. 
But  Philip  had  the  better  prospect,  if  there  was  an 
appeal  to  the  sword,  and  Innocent  refused  for  some 
years  to  commit  himself.  He  summoned  Philip  to 
surrender  the  Italian  prisoners  and  the  Papal  provinces 
taken  by  Henry,  and  sent  the  Bishop  of  Sutri  to  absolve 
him  if  he  complied.  To  his  extreme  annoyance  the 
not  very  clear-headed  Bishop  gave  Philip  an  uncondi- 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        183 

tional  absolution— for  which  Innocent  promptly  im- 
prisoned the  Bishop  for  life  in  a  monastery— and  thus 
surrendered  the  Pope's  chance  of  profiting  by  the 
situation. 

The  rivals  appealed  to  the  sword,  and  Innocent  bit- 
terly complained  that  Philip  did  not  ask  his  arbitration.  ^ 
He  alone,  he  declared  to  the  princes  and  prelates  of 
Germany,  was  the  judge  of  such  high  causes:  to  which 
the  princes  and  prelates  replied,  in  very  firm  and  digni- 
fied language,  that  they  would  have  no  Papal  inter- 
ference in  the  secular  concerns  of  Germany.^  As  the 
war  proceeded.  Innocent  made  it  clear  that  he  favoured 
Otto.  He  warned  the  Gennan  prelates  not  to  choose 
an  Emperor  on  whom  he  couid  not  bestow  the  crown, 
and  in  a  letter  to  the  Eastern  Emperor  he  afterwards 
boasted  that  he  alone  kept  Philip  from  the  throne.  But 
the  war  went  in  favour  of  Philip,  and  even  when,  in 
1200,  both  men  sent  representatives  to  Rome,  Innocent 
would  not  commit  himself  to  more  than  an  eloquent 
proof  that  priests  were  exalted  above  kings.  ^  At  the 
beginning  of  the  following  year,  however,  he  declared 
openly  for  Otto.  He  sent  Cardinal  Pierleone  to  Ger- 
many with  the  Bull  Interest  Apostolicce  Sedis,  in  which 
he  drew  up  a  violent  and  unjust  indictment  of  Philip 
and  awarded  the  crown  to  the  loyal  and  virtuous  Otto. 
The  Bull  is  painfully  casuistic,  and  would  have  been 
better  if  it  had  stopped  at  the  bold  declaration  that  the 
Papacy  had  created  the  Empire  and  could  bestow  it 
according  to  its  pleasure.  While,  for  instance,  it 
charges  Philip  with  treachery  to  the  interests  of  his 
young  nephew,  it  exonerates  all  others  from  the  oath 
of  fidelity  to  Henry's  son  on  the  ground  that  an  oath 

'  Ep.,  ii.,  in  the  Register,  "On  the  Affairs  of  the  Empire":  Migne, 
col.  ccxvi.  *  Ep.,  xiv.  ^  Xviii. 


1 84    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

to  an  unbaptized  infant  was  invalid.'  The  imperial 
crown  was,  in  plain  terms,  allotted  in  the  interests  of 
the  Church,  in  defiance  of  the  wishes  of  the  majority 
of  the  German  nation.  Otto  hastened  to  swear  that 
he  would  defend  the  Papal  possessions  (including  Sicily) , 
and  was  proclaimed  by  a  Papal  Legate  in  Cologne 
cathedral  on  July  3,  1201. 

Innocent  now  sent  out  a  flood  of  letters  on  behalf  of 
his  candidate,  but  the  result  was  irritating.  Philip 
of  France  roughly  refused  to  recognize  Otto;  and  a  let- 
ter signed  by  two  German  archbishops,  ten  bishops, 
and  other  clerics  and  nobles,  sternly  rebuked  the  Pope 
for  his  "audacity"  in  meddling  with  things  which  did 
not  concern  him. '  Innocent's  Legates  vainly  scattered 
threats  of  excommunication  in  Germany.  Hardly  a 
single  prelate  recognized  Otto,  and,  after  seven  years 
of  the  most  brutal  civil  warfare,  he  Vv^as  driven  out  of 
the  country.  We  are  not  impressed  by  the  Pope's 
feverish  protests  that  he  was  not  responsible  for  this 
desolation.  In  1208,  however,  Philip,  who  had  been 
reconciled  with  Rome  in  the  previous  year,  was  assas- 
sinated, and  Otto,  with  Innocent's  approval,  mounted 
the  throne.  To  the  intense  indignation  of  the  Pope, 
the  new  Emperor  at  once  cast  his  oaths  of  fidcHty  to  the 
wind  and  told  Innocent  to  confine  himself  to  spiritual 
/  matters.  He  annexed  Tuscany  and  Spoleto,  in  spite 
of  all  the  Pope's  entreaties  and  threats,  and  was  about 
to  march  against  Naples  and  Apulia  when  Innocent 
launched  against  him  a  sentence  of  excommunication 
and  deposition.  Otto  was,  for  the  time,  an  excellent 
ruler:  he  had  been  educated  in  the  English  ideas  of 

'  The  Deliberatio,  or  essential  part  of  the  Bull,  is  given  in  Migne's 
"Register  of  Imperial  Concerns,"  no.  xxix.  See  also  the  decretal 
Venerabilem  Fratrem,  no.  Ixii.  '  Lxi. 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        185 

government.  But  he  had  refused  to  be  subservient 
to  the  clergy,  and  the  German  prelates  now  summoned 
Frederic  from  Sicily.  Innocent  approved  the  election 
of  Frederic  as  easily  as  he  had  approved  that  of  Philip 
and  of  Otto,  but  he  did  not  live  to  see  how  that  Emperor 
in  turn  defied  the  Papacy  and  scorned  its  political 
pretensions. ' 

Next  in  interest  and  importance  were  Innocent's 
relations  with  England.  With  Richard  the  Lion-Heart 
the  Pope  maintained  a  friendly  correspondence,  nor 
did  he  annoy  the  English  prelates  by  any  inconvenient 
censure  of  the  condition  of  the  English  Church.  In 
1 199  John  Lackland  succeeded  his  brother,  and  Innocent 
was  even  more  indulgent  to  that  barbarous  and  un- 
scrupulous monarch.  Into  the  death  of  Prince  Arthur 
he  made  no  indiscreet  inquiry;  he  confirmed  the  disso- 
lution of  John's  marriage,  and,  for  his  shameful  theft 
of  the  love  of  the  betrothed  of  the  Count  de  la  Marche, 
imposed  on  him  only  the  light  and  useful  penance  of  a 
general  confession  and  the  equipment  of  a  hundred 
knights  for  Palestinian  service.  During  the  war  which 
followed  he  made  earnest  efforts  to  mediate,  though 
even  these  were  at  times  marred  by  his  temporizing 
policy  and  his  determination  not  to  alienate  the  kings. 
When  the  bishops  of  Normandy,  after  the  capture  of 
that  province  by  Philip,  asked  him  how  they  were  to 
adjust  their  allegiance,  he  weakly  replied  that  Philip 
seemed  to  rely  on  some  claim  which  he  could  not  under- 
stand and  they  must  judge  for  themselves.''  At  length 
a  famous  quarrel  about  the  archbishopric  of  Canterbury 

'  See  R.  Schwemer,  Innocenz  III.  und  die  Deutsche  Kirche  wdhrend 
des  Thronstreites  von  iigS-1208  (1882),  and  E.  Englemann,  P/u//i/»  von 
Schwaben  und  Innocenz  III.  (1896). 

» Ep.,  viii.,  7. 


i86    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
drew  him  into  a  stem  and  triumphant  conflict  with 
John. 

The  Archbishop,  a  worldly-minded  courtier  of  the 
familiar  type,  died  in  1205,  and  the  Canterbury  monks, 
who  claimed  the  right  of  nomination,  met  hastily,  by 
night,  without  awaiting  the  royal  license  to  proceed  to 
an  election,  and  nominated  their  sub-prior  Reginald. 
They  sent  Reginald  at  once  to  Rome,  enjoining  on  him 
the  strictest  secrecy  until  he  was  consecrated,  but  the 
monk  made  a  parade  of  his  high  condition  as  soon  as 
he  reached  the  continent  and  there  was  great  indigna- 
tion in  England.  The  Chapter,  which  disputed  the 
arrogant  claim  of  the  monks,  elected  the  Bishop  of 
Norwich,  and  many  of  the  monks,  alarmed  at  their 
action  or  disgusted  with  their  sub-prior,  joined  in  the 
election.  Sixteen  monks  accompanied  the  second  de- 
putation to  Rome,  and  they  supported  the  declaration 
of  the  Court  and  the  Church  that  Reginald's  election 
was  invalid.  As,  however,  the  Bishop  of  Norwich 
was  one  of  the  indulgent  prelates,  Innocent  casuistically 
annulled  both  elections  and  imposed  Stephen  Langton 
on  the  English,  John  furiously  protested  that  the 
Pope  had  insulted  his  state  and  threatened  to  withdraw 
the  English  Church  from  his  jurisdiction;  shrewdly 
reminding  the  Pope  that  he  received  more  money  from 
England  than  from  any  other  country. 

John  seems  to  have  misunderstood  the  earlier  com- 
plaisance of  the  Pope.  Innocent  was  not  the  man  to 
yield  to  a  threat  of  financial  loss,  and  he  at  once  con- 
secrated Langton  and  laid  England  under  an  interdict. 
For  some  years  the  affrighted  people  saw  the  doors  of 
their  churches  closed  against  them  and  imagined  the 
jaws  of  a  mediaeval  hell  gaping  wide  for  their  souls. 
There  was  no  Christian  marriage  for  their  sons  and 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        187 

daughters,  no  Christian  burial  for  their  aged;  and  only 
to  dying  persons  could  the  consoling  sacrament  be 
administered.  In  his  fury  John  drove  priests  and 
prelates  out  of  his  kingdom,  but  his  cruel  and  extortion- 
ate government  had  lost  him  the  compensating  strength 
of  the  affection  of  his  people.  In  121 1  he  was  forced  to 
seek  terms,  and  a  Papal  Legate  reached  England. 
Between  the  arrogance  of  Legate  Pandolpho  and  the 
passion  of  the  King  the  negotiation  failed,  and  John  was 
deposed  by  the  Pope.  England,  Rome  repeated,  had 
been  a  fief  of  the  Apostolic  See  since  William  the  Con- 
queror; it  was  now  open  to  any  Christian  monarch  to 
invade  and  possess  it.  This  was  a  direct  invitation 
to  Philip  of  France  to  renew  those  horrors  of  warfare 
which  Innocent  had  so  eloquently  denounced,'  and, 
to  the  intense  mortification  of  the  French  King,  John 
abjectly  submitted  (1213).  He  even  handed  to  the 
proud  Legate  a  solemn  declaration  that  England  and 
Ireland  were  fiefs  of  the  Apostolic  See,  and  that  he 
would  pay  a  thousand  marks  a  year  for  vassalage.  The 
clergy  were  recalled  and  compensated,  the  interdict 
was  raised,  and  Legate  Pandolpho  stalked  the  land  with 
the  insufferable  air  of  a  conqueror. 

If,  however,  this  conflict  gives  an  honourable  promi- 
nence to  the  sterner  qualities  of  Innocent,  its  sequel 
no  less  illustrates  the  weakness  which  seemed  insepara- 
ble from  the  Papal  policy,  even  when  it  was  embodied 
in  a  lofty  character.  Pandolpho  behaved  so  wantonly 
in  resettling  the  clergy  that  he  presently  fell  foul  of 
the  high-minded  Langton:  John  behaved  with  a  fe- 
rocity which  drove  nobles  and  commoners  to  the  step 
of  rebellion.  Yet  Innocent  maintained  his  mischievous 
Legate  against  Langton,  and  laid  a  Papal  malediction 

■  Ep.,  vi.,  163. 


1 88    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

on  the  just  aspirations  of  the  people.  He  rebuked  the 
barons  for  their  "nefarious  presumption"  in  taking 
arms  against  a  vassal  of  the  Roman  See ;  he  denounced 
Magna  Charta  as  a  devil-inspired  document,  and  for- 
bade "his  vassal "  to  accede  to  its  unjust  demands.  He 
excommunicated  the  barons  when  they  refused  to  lay 
down  their  arms,  and  suspended  Langton  when  that 
prelate  refused,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  dictated 
by  false  representations,  to  promulgate  his  sentence. 
When  the  barons  offered  the  crown  to  Louis,  son  of 
Philip  of  France,  he  issued  an  anathema  against  Louis; 
and  in  121 6  he  issued  a  sentence  of  excommunication 
against  Philip  himself  for  encouraging  his  son.  He 
died  before  his  sombre  use  of  his  spiritual  weapons,  in 
a  carnal  cause,  was  completed.  He  had,  within  ten 
years,  raised  Papal  power  in  England  to  its  supreme 
height  and  then  dealt  it  a  blow  from  which  it  would 
never  recover.  It  is  futile  to  plead  that  he  was  ill 
informed  on  the  situation.  He  knew  John,  and  he 
knew  Langton;  he  ought  to  have  known  Pandolpho. 
In  point  of  fact,  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  he  was 
radically  misinformed.  His  whole  action  is  plainly 
inspired  by  the  interest,  as  he  conceived  it,  of  the 
Papacy. ' 

I  must  dismiss  very  briefly  his  relations  with  other 
Christian  countries.  Philip  of  France  had,  like  John 
of  England,  discarded  his  wife  and  married  a  woman 
he  loved.  But  the  Papal  miscroscope  refused,  in  his 
case,  to  discover  the  remote  affinity  which,  Philip  said, 
made  his  first  marriage  void,  and  an  interdict  was  laid 
on  his  kingdom.  The  terrified  priests  and  people  tore 
Philip  from  the  arms  of  Agnes  de  Meran,  the  mother 
of  three  of  his  children,   and  forced  him  to  submit. 

'  See  E.  Giitschow,  Innocetiz  III.  und  England  (1904). 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        189 

Only  under  the  later  pressure  of  his  conflicts  with  Otto 
and  John  did  Innocent  discover  that  there  was  sufficient 
prima  facie  evidence  to  spend  several  years  in  negotia- 
tion about  a  divorce,  and,  by  an  extraordinary  use  of 
his  high  powers,  he  declared  the  children  of  Agnes 
legitimate. 

In  Spain  and  Portugal,  Innocent  found  irregular 
marriages  almost  as  numerous  as  regular,  and  his  in- 
terventions show  the  same  unedifying  mixture  of  priestly 
rigour  and  political  compromise.  Sacerdotal  legislation 
had  by  this  time  surrounded  marriage  with  a  por- 
tentous series  of  obstacles — forbidden  degrees  of  spiri- 
tual and  carnal  affinity — which  sacerdotal  power  alone 
could  remove,  yet  the  isolated  princes  of  the  Peninsula 
were  compelled  to  marry  constantly  into  each  other's 
families  and  did  not  always  ask  the  costly  blessing  of 
the  Papacy.  That  this  legislation  did  not  improve  the 
sex-morals  of  Europe,  which  were  at  least  no  better 
than  they  had  been  in  pagan  times,  is  well  known. 
Spain  was  particularly  lax,  having  contracted  the 
gaiety  of  neighbouring  Provence,  and  her  kings  may 
have  felt  that  where  unwedded  love  was  so  genially 
tolerated,  these  academic  restraints  on  wedded  love 
might  be  disregarded. 

Innocent  placed  the  kingdoms  of  Leon  and  Castile 
under  an  interdict  because  the  King  of  Leon  had  married 
his  cousin,  Berengaria  of  Castile,  and,  when  the  court 
of  Leon  ignored  his  censures,  he  predicted  that  there 
would  be  a  horrible  issue  of  the  unhallowed  union.  Its 
first  fruit  was  St.  Ferdinand;  but  Berengaria  nervously 
retired  after  a  few  years  and  left  the  King  to  bear  his 
excommunication  with  Spanish  dignity.  The  King  of 
Castile  soon  obtained  the  removal  of  the  interdict,  on 
the  ground  that  it  favoured  the  growth  of  heresy,  but 


190  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
he  was  then  threatened  with  excommunication  because 
he  permitted  the  Jews  to  become  rich  while  the  Church 
was  poor.  Pedro  of  Aragon  was  more  fortunate.  In 
the  course  of  a  journey  to  Rome  he  married  the  wife  of 
the  Count  de  Comminges,  and  the  Pope  at  once  accepted 
her  assurance  that  the  Count  had  two  wives  Hving 
when  he  married  her,  and  blessed  the  union.  Pedro, 
it  should  be  added,  swore  fealty  and  an  annual  subsidy 
of  two  hundred  gold  pieces  to  the  Pope.  The  King  of 
Navarre  incurred  an  interdict  for  allying  himself  with 
the  Moors,  All  that  one  can  seriously  put  to  the  credit 
of  Innocent  is  that  he  greatly  aided  the  unification  of 
Spain  by  spurring  its  kings  to  a  common  crusade  against 
the  Moors ;  if  we  may  assume  that  the  crusade  favoured 
the  progress  of  civilization  in  the  country.  Sancho 
of  Portugal  also  felt,  and  disdained,  the  touch  of  the 
Papal  whip.  When  Innocent  complained  of  his  oppres- 
sion of  the  clergy,  he  threatened — in  a  letter  which 
Innocent  describes  as  the  most  insolent  ever  written 
to  a  Pope — to  strip  his  corrupt  priests  of  all  their 
wealth.  Innocent  at  once  temporized,  but  a  dangerous 
illness  and  fit  of  repentance  soon  put  Sancho  and  the 
kingdom  of  Portugal  at  his  feet.  At  his  death  Sancho 
left  the  kingdom  wholly  subject  to  Rome  and  the 
clergy,  though  it  was  not  many  years  before  the  quarrels 
of  his  children  again  drew  upon  it  the  spiritual  blight 
of  an  interdict. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  describe  in  detail  all  the  simi- 
lar interventions  of  the  Pope  in  other  countries.  He 
refused  to  let  Marie  of  Brabant  marry  the  Emperor 
Otto,  and  refused  to  dissolve  the  marriage  of  the  King 
of  Bohemia;  indeed,  he  sternly  rebuked  the  King  of 
Bohemia  for  receiving  his  crown  at  the  hands  of  Philip 
of  Swabia.     In  Hungary  he  scolded  Prince  Endre  for 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        191 

rebelling  against  his  brother,  and  he  raised  Bulgaria 
to  the  rank  of  a  kingdom,  on  condition  that  it  recog- 
nized Roman  supremacy.  He  claimed,  in  a  word,  to 
be  the  king  of  kings,  the  temporal  as  well  as  religious 
master  of  Europe.  But  we  shall  more  clearly  appre- 
ciate the  qualities  of  his  character  and  shades  of  his 
standard  of  action  if  we  examine  more  fully  his  con- 
nection with  the  Fourth  Crusade  and  the  crusade  against 
heresy. 

Tripoli,  Antioch,  and  a  few  small  Palestinian  towns 
were  all  that  remained  of  the  European  conquests  from 
the  Saracen,  and  Innocent's  constant  correspondence 
with  the  Christian  prelates  who  lingered  in  the  East 
made  him  eager,  from  the  beginning  of  his  Pontificate, 
to  inspire  Europe  to  make  one  more  grand  attempt  to 
rescue  the  holy  places.  For  several  years  he  sought, 
by  letters  and  Legates,  to  fire  the  Christian  princes, 
to  divert  the  swords  of  France  and  England  to  the 
breast  of  the  Mohammedan,  and  to  melt  the  cold  cal- 
culations of  Venice.  But  the  memory  of  the  last  colos- 
sal failure — of  all  the  blood  and  treasure  that  had  been 
expended  on  the  stubborn  task — was  too  fresh  in  Europe. 
In  vain  he  promised,  to  all  who  took  the  cross,  a  sure 
entry  into  Paradise,  and  hinted  not  obscurely  at  the 
damnation  which  awaited  those  who  refused.  Thin 
bands  of  zealots  responded  to  the  call,  and  a  larger 
multitude  were  induced  to  take  the  cross  by  Innocent's 
princely  declaration  that  the  earthly  debts  of  all  who 
joined  the  Crusade  would  be  cancelled,  and  the  Jews 
would  be  forced  to  forswear  their  legitimate  interest. 
The  knights  of  Europe,  to  his  fiery  indignation,  still 
wasted  their  spears  on  each  other,  or  continued  the 
more  pleasant  pastimes  of  the  chase  and  the  tourna- 
ment.    Innocent,  in  a  flood  of  eloquent  letters,  taxed 


192    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

the  clergy,  confiscated  the  funds  of  erratic  monks,  and 
forbade  the  lay  nobles  to  wear  costly  furs  or  eat  costly 
dinners  or  indulge  in  tournaments.  There  were  mur- 
murs that  the  Christians  of  the  East  needed  no  aid, 
since  they  were  on  excellent  terms  with  the  Saracens, 
as  the  Pope  was  painfully  aware;  and  that  the  only 
sure  effect  of  Crusades  was  to  increase  the  power  and 
the  wealth  of  the  Papacy  which  organized  them. 
Even  the  clergy  and  the  monks  refused  the  subsidies 
he  demanded,  and  he  was  compelled  to  sanction  a 
practice  which  would  in  time  prove  the  most  terrible 
and  destructive  abuse  of  the  mediaeval  Papacy:  the 
penance  imposed  on  confessing  sinners  was  to  take  the 
form  of  a  money-contribution.  To  this  day  the  indul- 
gences which  are  sold  in  Spain  trace  their  origin  to  the 
Crusades,  as  the  printed  biila  declares. 

At  length,  in  the  year  1200,  Baldwin  of  Flanders  and 
a  few  bishops  and  nobles  formed  the  nucleus  of  a  Cru- 
sade, and  the  astute  Venetians  were  invited  to  provide 
for  the  transport  of  an  army.  In  the  spring  of  1202 
the  streams  of  soldiers  and  priests  converged  upon 
Venice,  and  an  army  of  23,000  assembled  for  the  fourth 
assault  on  the  Saracens.  But  the  Pope's  joy  was  soon 
overcast,  and  the  Crusade  proved  to  be  the  second  most 
lamentable  occurrence  of  his  Pontificate. 

When  the  army  assembled  near  Venice,  it  was  discov- 
ered that  neither  the  soldiers  nor  the  Pope  had  money 
enough  to  pay  their  passage  to  the  East.  Venice  had 
by  that  time  fully  developed  its  hard  commercial  spirit, 
and  its  famous  blind  Doge  proposed  to  remit  the  debt 
if  the  Crusaders  would,  on  their  way,  retake  Zara  (in 
Dalmatia)  from  the  Hungarians  for  the  Venetians. 
Innocent  made  the  most  violent  opposition,  but  the 
Venetians,   disdaining  his  threats,   compelled  the  im- 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        193 

poverished  soldiers  to  consent,  and  on  October  8th 
they  set  sail,  under  threat  of  excommunication,  to 
begin  their  Crusade  by  the  shedding  of  Christian  blood. 
They  took  Zara,  and  incurred  excommunication;  but 
Innocent  could  not  reconcile  himself  to  the  complete 
failure  of  his  grand  plan.  He  withdrew  the  censures 
they  had  so  flagrantly  defied,  and  admitted,  or  stated, 
that  they  had  acted  under  "a  sort  of  necessity."  They 
were  to  make  some  vague  "satisfaction"  for  their  mis- 
deed, and  push  on,  with  clean  souls,  to  the  East.  The 
Venetians  alone  were  not  relieved  of  the  censure,  but, 
though  knights  of  a  more  tender  conscience  were  pain- 
fully perplexed  to  find  themselves  in  the  same  galleys 
with  excommunicated  men,  the  Venetians  showed  no 
concern.  They  had  another  check  in  reserve  for  the 
Pope. 

Before  they  left  Italy,  Alexis  Comnenus  had  arrived 
from  Constantinople  to  ask  their  aid  in  restoring  his 
father  to  the  throne  he  had  just  lost,  and  they  were 
disposed  to  assist  him.  One  could  not,  of  course, 
expect  the  Pope  to  show  the  same  concern  for  the  blood 
of  schismatics  as  for  the  blood  of  the  Hungarians,  yet 
his  consent  to  this  fatal  and  lamentable  enterprise  is  a 
stain  on  his  record.  The  sordid  squabble  of  the  Com- 
neni  family  did  not  deserve  the  sacrifice  of  a  single 
knight,  and  the  part  of  Isaac  Comnenus  was  espoused 
by  the  Crusaders  and  the  Pope  only  because  the  young 
Alexis  promised  money  and  provisions  to  the  troops  and 
the  subjection  of  the  Greek  Church  to  the  Lateran. 
The  issue  is  well  known.  The  Crusaders  took  Con- 
stantinople, sacked  the  city,  and  desecrated  the  churches 
with  a  brutality  that  must  have  shocked  the  Saracens; 
and  they  then  settled  down  to  divide  its  territory  be- 
tween themselves  and  the  Venetians.  The  letters 
13 


194    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

which  Innocent  sent,  as  the  successive  news  arrived, 
are  painful  reading.  He  must  blame  their  excesses, 
he  says  at  first,  but,  after  all,  these  outrages  had  been 
merited  by  the  sins  of  the  Greeks;  let  the  Crusaders 
inform  him  that  the  submission  of  the  Greek  Church 
has  been  secured.  At  last  they  send  him,  for  his  con- 
firmation, a  treaty  from  which  he  learns  that  they  have 
arranged  all  the  affairs,  spiritual  as  well  as  secular,  of 
the  new  Empire  without  consulting  him,  and  he  writes 
more  warmly.  To  the  outrage  they  have  committed 
he  is  still  almost  insensible ;  it  is  their  audacity  in  ruling 
the  new  Church — in  permitting  the  hated  Venetians 
to  select  a  Patriarch— which  excites  his  anger. 

The  last  phase  of  the  enterprise  caused  him  grave 
distress.  Instead  of  proceeding  to  the  East,  the  Latins 
set  up  an  Empire  and  several  petty  princedoms,  and 
the  Greeks  disdainfully  watched  their  quarrels  and 
awaited  their  own  opportunity.  Monks  and  priests 
were  summoned  from  France,  but  the  people  were 
secretly  wedded  to  their  old  religion  and  the  new  Church 
was  a  hollow  sham.  For  years  Innocent  had  to  main- 
tain a  fretful  correspondence,  settling  quarrels  about 
jurisdiction  and  property,  and  scolding  his  Crusaders 
for  their  oppression  and  spoliation  of  the  clergy.  But 
it  is  needless  to  recount  all  the  details  of  that  historic 
failure.  The  weariness  of  Innocent  may  be  appreci- 
ated from  the  fact  that  in  12 13  he  naively  wrote  to 
the  Khalipha  himself,  beseeching  him  "in  all  humility" 
to  restore  to  the  Christians  the  land  which  they  had 
not  the  courage  or  the  interest  to  win  by  the  sword. 

The  crusade  against  the  Albigensians  was  more 
successful,  and  even  more  lamentable,  and  I  need  do 
no  more  here  than  elucidate  Innocent's  relation  to  that 
monstrous  crime.     The  degradation  of  morals  and  of 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        195 

religious  practice,  the  corruption  of  the  clergy,  and  the 
stupendous  claims  of  the  Papacy,  had  already  provoked 
in  Europe  the  beginnings  of  protest.  A  somewhat 
modified  form  of  Christianity's  old  rival,  Manichasism, 
had  lingered  in  the  East  and  had  in  time  mingled  with 
the  austere  Christianity  of  the  Pauline  Epistles.  From 
the  Eastern  Empire  it  had  spread  to  Bulgaria,  and 
from  there,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  it  passed  rapidly 
over  Europe,  assimilating  all  the  anti-clerical  and  anti- 
ritualist  feeling  which  the  corruption  of  the  time  in- 
spired. In  one  or  other  form  it  obtained  considerable 
strength  in  Switzerland,  Piedmont,  and  the  south  of 
France,  and  it  was  fast  gathering  recruits  in  Italy  and 
Spain.  The  light-living  princes  of  Languedoc  had  little 
inclination  to  persecute;  nor  would  they  think  that, 
if  one  might  sing  ribald  contempt  of  the  ecclesiastical 
system  in  the  tavern  and  the  monastery,  this  disdain 
was  less  respectable  in  the  mouths  of  a  generally  sincere 
and  upright  body  of  fanatics. 

In  the  first  year  of  his  Pontificate  Innocent  sent  two 
Cistercian  monks,  Guy  and  Renier,  to  convert  the 
heretics  and  incite  the  civil  and  religious  authorities 
to  enforce  the  law.  Of  corporal  persecution  he  assur- 
edly did  not  dream  at  that  time,  and  indeed  his  letters 
made  it  clear  that  he  preferred  persuasion  to  coercion 
of  any  kind.  The  monks  failed  either  to  convert  the 
heretics  or  to  induce  the  bishops  and  princes  of  the 
south  of  France  to  persecute  (by  confiscation  and  exile), 
and  they  were  replaced  by  the  more  vigorous  monk- 
legates,  Pierre  de  Castelnau  and  Raoul,  to  whom  the 
resolute  Abbot  Arnold  of  Citeaux  was  afterwards  added. 
Their  powers  set  aside  all  ordinary  episcopal  jurisdic- 
tion, and,  in  pursuance  of  their  policy  of  displacing  lax 
and  reluctant  prelates,  they  put  the  fanatical  Foulques 


196    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

of  Marseilles  in  the  bishopric  of  Toulouse.  For  eight 
years  these  energetic  apostles  worked  almost  in  vain 
among  the  heretics.  Apparently  at  the  suggestion 
of  St.  Dominic,  who  was  just  entering  the  history  of 
Europe,  the  Pope  directed  them  to  raise  a  corps  of 
Cistercian  monks  who  should  live  and  preach  on  the 
model  of  the  coming  mendicant  friars,  but  even  this 
device  made  little  impression  on  the  heretics  or  the 
light-living  Catholics.  Arnold  and  Foulques,  in  par- 
ticular, became  desperate,  and  the  lamentable  policy 
of  persecution  began  to  grow  in  their  minds  and  that 
of  the  Pope. 

The  principle  of  persecution  had,  as  we  saw,  been 
established  in  the  Lateran  centuries  before,  and  the 
only  thing  that  restrained  Innocent  from  applying  it, 
in  its  bloodless  form,  was  the  refusal  of  the  secular 
rulers  to  co-operate.  Raymond  of  Toulouse  was  too 
healthily  Epicurean  to  favour  either  the  sombre  creed 
of  the  heretics  or  the  more  sombre  creed  of  the  perse- 
cutor. Apologetic  writers  speak  with  horror  of  the 
number  of  his  wives  and  fair  friends,  but  we  do  not  find 
that  his  conduct  in  this  regard,  or  the  similar  conduct 
of  other  princes  and  prelates,  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  Pope.  When,  however,  he  slighted  a  sentence  of 
excommunication  and  still  refused  to  persecute  his 
excellent  but  unorthodox  subjects,  he  received  a  wither- 
ing letter.'  "Who  does  he  think  he  is?"  the  Pope 
asks  scornfully,  to  disobey  one  before  whom  the  greatest 
monarchs  of  the  earth  bow.  Let  him  cease  to  "feed 
on  corpses  like  a  vulture" — to  break  a  lance  with  his 
neighbours — and  obey  the  Legates,  or  the  Pope  will 
invite  a  more  powerful  prince  to  displace  him.  As 
early  as  November  17,  1207,  Innocent  bade  the  King 

'X.,69. 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith        197 

of  France,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  and  other  nobles, 
prepare  for  an  expedition  to  Toulouse ;  and  the  privileges 
of  Crusaders  were  promised  to  all  who  joined  it. 

Raymond  was  more  moved  by  the  political  threat 
than  by  the  spiritual  censures,  but  there  was  sullen 
anger  amongst  his  followers,  and  on  January  15,  1208, 
the  Legate  Pierre  de  Castelnau  was  assassinated.  There 
is  not  a  tittle  of  evidence  to  incriminate  Raymond,  and 
it  is  in  the  highest  degree  improbable  that  he  would 
thus  open  the  gates  to  his  greedy  neighbours,  but 
Innocent  chose  to  believe  that  he  had  directed  the 
murder.  Without  trial,  he  declared  that  Raymond 
had  forfeited  the  allegiance  of  his  subjects,  and  his 
dominions  might  be  seized  by  any  Christian  prince. 
He  spurred  Philip  of  France — who  must  have  been 
flattered  to  find  himself  now  described  as  "exalted 
amongst  all  others  by  God" — to  the  attack.^  He 
addressed  a  fiery  summons  to  "all  the  nobles  and 
people  of  France"  to  "avenge  this  terrible  insult  to 
God."^  Philip  wanted  Toulouse,  but  he  overreached 
himself  in  making  terms  and  he  dreaded  England. 
There  were,  however,  plenty  of  nobles  willing  to  lead 
their  men  to  the  plunder  of  prosperous  Provence,  and 
the  clergy  had  become  seriously  alarmed  at  the  spread 
of  the  heresy  in  France.  A  vast  army,  joyous  at  the 
rich  prospect  of  loot,  converged  upon  the  southern 
State.  Innocent  III.  knew  better  than  we  know  the 
forces  he  had  set  in  motion.  The  end  sanctified  the 
means. 

The  next  phase  was  pitiful:  the  issue  is  one  of  the 
most  horrible  pages  of  mediasval  history.  Raymond 
sent  representatives  to  Rome  to  offer  submission,  and 
the  Pope  and  his  Legates  were  embarrassed  and  be- 

'  Xi.,  28.  » Xi.,  29. 


198    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

haved  abominably.  When  Raymond  justly  complained 
of  the  bitterness  of  Arnold  of  Citeaux,  the  Pope  sent 
a  peaceful  notary  from  the  Lateran;  giving  the  man 
secret  instructions  to  take  no  step  without  the  direc- 
tions of  Arnold,  who  was  to  be  in  the  background,  and 
writing  to  Arnold  that  this  Legate  Milo  is  to  be  only 
*'  the  bait  to  conceal  the  hook  of  thy  sagacity."  Arnold, 
meanwhile,  went  to  organize  the  crusade,  for  they  in- 
tended to  impose  on  Raymond  terms  which  seemed 
impossible.  The  helpless  Raymond  licked  the  dust :  he 
was  stripped  and  scourged,  he  had  to  surrender  seven 
of  his  chief  castles  as  hostages,  and  he  was  forced  to 
promise  to  lead  the  troops  against  his  own  subjects. 
Innocent  sank  deeper  into  his  awful  policy.  In  an 
amazing  letter  to  his  Legates '  he  reminded  them  of  the 
words  of  Paul  (II.  Corinthians,  xii.,  16) :  "Being  crafty, 
I  caught  you  with  guile."  They  were  to  affect  to 
regard  the  repentance  of  Raymond  as  sincere,  and, 
"deceiving  him  by  prudent  dissimulation,  pass  to  the 
extirpation  of  the  other  heretics."  In  other  words,  they 
were  to  crush  Raymond's  chief  nobles  and  then,  if  he 
winced,  crush  him.  Raymond  did  not  wince,  yet  the 
army,  with  Abbot  Arnold  as  Captain  General,  moved 
i  southward  to  that  historic  butchery  of  the  Albigensians. 
The  modern  pica  that  Innocent  could  not  arrest  the 
avalanche  is  as  wanton  as  the  idea  that  he  was  moved 
by  "social  considerations."  A  sentence  of  excom- 
munication, promulgated  by  Arnold  of  Citeaux,  would 
have  reduced  the  army  to  impotent  proportions.  In- 
nocent would  not  disappoint  Arnold  and  Foulques, 
and  those  who  had  responded  to  his  summons;  and  he 
felt  more  sure  of  success  this  way.  After  the  first  two 
months  of  butchery  and  seizure  of  cities,  he  sent  his 

'  Xi.,  232. 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal' Zenith'       199 

blessing  to  the  ambitious  de  Montfort.  He  was,  how- 
ever, superior  to  his  Legates.  The  ferocious  Arnold 
made  every  effort  to  goad  Raymond  to  rebellion,  and 
at  last  excommunicated  him  again  on  the  plea  that  he 
had  not  fulfilled  his  promises.  Innocent  tried — rather 
tamely — to  restrain  Arnold,  refused  to  confiscate  Ray- 
mond's castles  (as  Arnold  demanded)  until  he  had  a 
just  trial,  and  received  him  courteously  at  Rome. 
At  last,  utterly  revolted  by  the  baseness  of  the  Legates, 
Raymond  winced.  He  was  denounced  to  Rome,  was 
confronted  with  terms  which  no  man  with  a  spark  of 
honour  could  accept,  and,  when  he  refused,  was  ex- 
communicated: the  Pope  confirming  the  sentence. 
Raymond's  dominions  were  transferred  to  "the  Blessed 
Peter,"  and  de  Montfort  was  to  levy  an  annual  tax — 
on  which  Innocent  is  painfully  insistent — for  the 
Papacy. 

Two  years  butchery  of  men,  women,  and  children 
had  not  yet  broken  the  spirit  of  the  Albigensians,  and 
at  the  beginning  of  12 13,  the  Legates  and  Simon  were 
dismayed  to  hear  from  Innocent  that  the  crusade  was 
over,  and  the  troops  had  better  proceed  against  the 
Saracens;  that  Raymond  had  not  yet  been  legally  con- 
victed of  heresy  and  murder,  and  had  not  therefore 
forfeited  his  fief;  that,  in  any  case,  Raymond's  sons, 
rather  than  Simon  de  Montfort,  were  his  natural  suc- 
cessors. Two  Bulls  (January  17  and  18,  12 13)  and 
four  letters  in  quick  succession  apprised  the  miser- 
able group  that  Innocent — largely  owing  to  the  inter- 
vention of  Pedro  of  Aragon — at  length  appreciated 
their  misconduct  or  had  the  courage  to  consult  his 
better  feelings.  Unhappily,  his  courage  did  not  last 
long.  They  stormed  Rome  with  their  remonstrances, 
and    Innocent   yielded.     As,    moreover,    the   King   of 


200    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Aragon  failed  in  his  attempt  to  reduce  them  by  arms, 
the  cause  of  Raymond  was  utterly  lost  and  his  territory 
was  made  over  to  Rome.  To  the  end  Innocent  wavered 
between  his  more  humane  feeling  and  the  policy  he  had 
so  long  countenanced.  He  refused  to  confirm  the 
appointment  of  Simon  as  sovereign  (imder  Rome)  of 
the  whole  territory,  and  when  Arnold  (who  was  now 
Archbishop  of  Narbonne)  quarrelled  with  Simon  over 
the  title  of  Duke  of  Narbonne,  he  supported  Arnold. 
At  the  Lateran  Council,  which  was  to  decide  the  issue, 
he  made  a  plea  for  leniency  to  Raymond  and  justice 
to  his  heirs,  but  he  yielded  to  the  truculent  priests, 
and  the  unhappy  prince  was  cast  aside  with  an  annual 
pension  of  four  hundred  marks.  Innocent  did  not  Hve 
to  see  the  arrogant  Arnold  excommunicate  de  Montfort, 
and  the  two  Raymonds  return  and  win  back  much  of 
their  estate. 

Causa  causcE  est  causa  causati,  the  schoolmen  used  to 
say.  The  Pope  who  maintained  Arnold  of  Citeaux, 
Foulques  of  Marseilles,  and  Simon  de  Montfort  in 
their  positions  when  their  characters  were  fully  revealed, 
and  the  whole  of  Europe  knew  the  atrocities  they  com- 
mitted, bears  the  guilt  of  the  massacre  of  the  Albigen- 
sians. 

The  fourth  Lateran  Council  was  his  last  work,  and 

one  of  the  most  important  Councils  of  the  Middle 

^        Ages.     He    summoned    all    the   bishops,    abbots,    and 

priors  of  Christendom  to  come,  on  November  i,  12 15, 

to  discuss  the  reform  of  the  Church,  the  suppression 

of  heresy,  and  the  recovery  of  Palestine.     A  vast  audi- 

1    ence  listened  to  his  opening  sermon  on  November  nth, 

and  for  nineteen  days  they  framed  laws  against  heretics, 

'  Jews,  and  schismatics:  vainly  thundered  against  the 

vice,  sensuality,  and  rapacity  of  the  clergy:  reduced  the 


Innocent  III.:  the  Papal  Zenith       201 

forbidden  degrees  of  kindred  (in  marriage)  to  four — - 
since  there  were  only  four  humours  in  the  body:  im- 
posed on  all  Christians  a  duty  of  confessing  at  least 
once  a  year:  and  fixed  the  next  Crusade  for  June  i,  12 16. 
But  Innocent,  if  he  marked  with  pride  the  contrast 
of  that  gorgeous  assemblage  to  the  little  group  of 
Christians  who  had  met  in  an  inn  in  the  Transtiberina 
a  thousand  years  earlier,  cannot  have  been  content. 
Not  a  single  Greek  had  responded  to  his  summons: 
grave  murmurs  at  his  hard  policy  and  despotic  action 
arose  in  the  Council  itself:  half  the  prelates,  at  least, 
were  unfit  to  impose  reforming  measures  on  their 
priests:  and  the  ghastly  mockery  of  his  last  Crusade 
gave  little  hope  for  the  future.  He  did  not  even  appre- 
ciate the  new  forces  for  good  which  were  rising.  He 
had  coldly  received,  if  not  actually  discouraged,  Domi- 
nic and  Francis.  His  ideal  was  power :  of  love  he  knew 
nothing.  He  flung  himself  ardently  into  the  prepara- 
tion for  the  new  war  on  the  Saracens,  and  died,  on  June 
16,  12 1 6,  with  the  call  to  arms  on  his  lips.  He  sacrificed 
himself  nobly  in  the  interest  of  his  high  ideal,  and  was 
one  of  the  greatest  makers  of  the  Papacy,  but  he  sacri- 
ficed also  much  that  men  inalienably  prize,  and  he 
began  the  unmaking  of  the  Papacy. 


CHAPTER  X 

JOHN  XXII.:  THE  COURT  AT  AVIGNON 

IN  maintaining  that  the  power  of  the  Papacy  waned 
A  after  the  Pontificate  of  Innocent  III.,  I  do  not  mean 
that  there  was  such  visible  decay  as  even  the  most 
acute  contemporary  observer  might  have  detected. 
The  thirteenth  century  must  have  seemed  to  the  states- 
men of  the  time  to  strengthen  the  Papacy.  The  Do- 
minican and  Franciscan  friars,  quickly  recognized  by 
Innocent's  successors,  impressed  on  Europe  the  duty 
of  implicit  obedience.  The  great  canonists  began  to 
make  an  imposing  body  of  law  out  of  the  decrees  of  the 
Popes.  Art  developed  in  close  association  with  reli- 
gious sentiment.  The  hereditary  feud  with  the  Hohen- 
stauffens  ended,  fifty  years  after  the  death  of  Innocent, 
with  the  complete  overthrow  of  the  son  and  grandson  of 
Frederic  II.  Yet  most  historians  now  recognize  that 
the  thirteenth  century  was,  for  the  Papacy,  a  period  of 
slow  and  subtle  decay.  The  mighty  struggle  with 
Frederic,  Manfred,  and  Conradin  exhausted  the  high- 
minded,  but  not  heroic,  successors  of  Innocent,  and  it 
ended  only  when,  by  summoning  Philip  of  Anjou, 
they  substituted  French  for  German  predominance 
and  inaugurated  another  exacting  period  of  conflict. 
The  alternative  was  a  period  of  comparative  impotence 
and  flabby  parasitism.     Into  this  the  Papacy  passed ; 

202 


John  XXII.:  the  Court  at  Avignon    203 

and,  unfortunately  for  it,  the  degeneration  occurred 
just  when  the  eyes  of  Europe  were  growing  sharper. 
It  was  the  date  of  the  early  renaissance  of  culture, 
inspired  by  the  Moors:  it  was  a  rich  period  of  civic 
development  and  prosperity:  it  was  the  time  when 
castes  of  keen-eyed  lay  lawyers  and  scholars  were 
growing.  Arms  were  yielding  to  togas  in  the  work  of 
restricting  the  growth  of  the  Papacy. 

Boniface  VIII.  (i 294-1 303)  is  the  last  great  repre- 
sentative of  the  Papal  ideal  in  its  earlier  and  more 
austere  mediasval  form.  His  Bull  Clericis  laicos  (1296) 
which  declared  all  clerical  and  monastic  property  in 
the  world  to  be  under  his  protection  and  sternly  bade 
secular  rulers  respect  it,  was  one  of  the  last  Olympic 
f ulminations ;  and  it  was  defeated  by  England  and 
France.  Then,  in  1300,  he  declared  the  Jubilee;  and 
some  historians  see  in  that  prostration  of  Christendom 
at  the  feet  of  the  Papacy  the  last  notable  expression  of 
its  world-power.  Men  said  at  the  time — I  am  not  press- 
ing it  as  fact — that  Boniface  was  so  exalted  by  the 
spectacle  that  he  put  on  the  imperial  crown  and  sandals. 
No  one  questions  that  the  Papacy  decayed  from  that' 
year.  Under  the  banner  of  Papal  absolutism  Boniface 
made  war  on  the  great  Ghibelline  family  of  the  Colonnas, 
and  on  Philip  the  Fair  and  his  lawyers,  and  he  igno- 
miniously  fell.  The  blameless  and  gentle  Dominican, 
Benedict  XL,  who  succeeded  him,  could  not  sustain  for 
more  than  a  few  months  the  struggle  he  had  inherited, 
and  the  Gascon  Clement  V.  then  inaugurated  what  has 
been  too  forcibly  called  "the  Babylonian  Captivity." 

After  a  secret  compact  with  Philip,  after  a  complete 
sacrifice  of  his  ideals,  and  after  the  distribution  of  much 
French  gold  among  the  cardinals,  he  obtained  the  tiara 
(1305)-     III  1309  he  settled  at  Avignon,  basely  surren- 


204    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

dered  the  Templars  (after  an  appalling  travesty  of 
justice)  to  the  cupidity  of  the  King,  and  settled  down, 
in  the  company  of  his  sister  and  niece  and  dear  friend 
the  Countess  of  Talleyrand-Perigord,  to  a  life  of  sen- 
suous luxury  and  the  accumulation  of  wealth.  He  died 
on  March  12,  13 14,  leaving  1,078,800  florins  (about 
£500,000)  nearly  the  whole  of  which  went  to  his  family 
and  friends,  and  the  cardinals  gathered  anxiously  to 
choose  his  successor. 

Clement  had  died  near  Carpentras,  about  fifteen 
miles  from  Avignon,  and  the  cardinals  met  in  the  episco- 
pal palace  of  that  town.  The  austere  Gregory  X.  had 
decreed  in  1274  that  the  cardinal  electors  should  be 
walled  into  their  chamber  (or  Conclave)  until  they  had 
chosen  a  Pope,  and  the  twenty-three  princes  of  the 
Church  prepared  for  a  desperate  encounter  in  their 
isolated  quarters.  There  were  six  Italians,  eager  to  tell 
a  pitiful  story  of  the  ruin  of  Rome  and  the  patrimonies 
because  of  the  absence  of  the  Pope  from  Italy.  But 
there  were  nine  Gascons — three  of  them  nephews  of 
Clement,  all  creatures  of  Clement — and,  as  two  of  the 
eight  French  cardinals  supported  the  Gascons,  they 
made  a  formidable  majority  and  demanded  an  Avignon 
Pope:  in  fact,  a  Gascon  Pope.  Day  followed  day  in 
angry  discussion,  and  the  cries  of  the  infuriated  followers 
of  the  Gascon  cardinals  without  grew  louder  and  louder. 
At  last,  on  July  23d,  there  came  a  thundering  on  the 
doors,  and  the  terrified  cardinals,  breaking  through  the 
wall,  fled  from  the  town  and  dispersed.  For  two  years, 
to  the  grave  scandal  of  Christendom,  they  refused  to 
agree  on  a  place  of  meeting,  until  at  last  Philip  of 
Valois  enticed  them  to  Lyons,  entrapped  them  into  a 
monastery,  and  told  them  that  they  were  prisoners 
until  they  made  a  Pope. 


John  XXIL:  the  Court  at  Avignon    205 

Under  these  auspices  Jacques  de  Cahors,  Cardinal 
of  Porto,  became  John  XXII.  He  was  a  Httle,  dry, 
bilious  old  man  of  seventy-two:  but  an  able  lawyer  and 
administrator,  and  a  man  of  wonderful  vigour  for  his 
age.  In  his  case  the  more  careful  research  of  modern 
times  and  the  opening  of  the  Vatican  Archives  have 
tended  to  give  him,  in  some  respects,  a  more  honour- 
able position  in  history  than  he  had  hitherto  occupied. 
The  reader  will  hardly  find  him  morally  and  spiritually 
attractive,  but  he  had  a  remarkable  and  powerful 
personality,  and  he  achieved  more  than  has  been  sup- 
posed. His  "Register"  in  the  Vatican  Archives  con- 
tains 65,000  letters.  Most  of  these  are  very  brief 
notes  written  by  the  Papal  clerks,  but  there  are  many  of 
interest  and  they  enable  us  at  times  to  correct  the 
anecdotists  of  his  age.  He  had  virulent  enemies,  and 
they  must  be  read  with  reserve.  ^ 

Jacques  d'Euse,  of  Cahors,  is  said  by  unfriendly 
writers  of  the  time  to  have  been  the  son  of  a  cobbler 
(or,  according  to  others,  a  tailor).  As  he  had  relatives 
in  good  positions,  and  received  a  good  schooling,  this 
is  probably  a  legend.  But  his  early  life  is  obscure. 
He  studied  under  the  Dominicans  of  Cahors,  and  then 
attended  the  lectures  at  Montpellier  and  at  Paris. 
The  story  of  Ferretti  di  Vicenza,  that  he  went  with  a 

'  For  the  letters  see  Lettres  de  Jean  XXII.  (2  vols.,  1908  and  1912), 
edited  by  Arnold  Fayen:  a  selection  of  3653  letters,  generally  business 
notes  of  little  importance.  Various  short  lives  of  John  are  given  in 
Baluze's  VitcB  Paparum  Avenionensium,  vol.  ii.,  and  there  are  censorious 
allusions  to  him  in  G.  Villani's  Historie  Florentine:  a  contemporary  but 
biassed  work.  Bertrandy's  Recherches  sur  Vorigine,  Velection,  et  le 
couronnement  de  Jean  XXII.  (1854)  is  valuable  for  his  early  years,  as 
well  as  Dr.  J.  Asal's  Die  Wahl  Johatm's  XXII.  (1910).  V.  Verlaque's 
Jeait  XXII.  (1883),  is  foolishly  partisan,  and  declares  John  "one  of  the 
greatest  successors  of  St.  Peter."  Sectional  studies  will  be  noticed  in 
the  course  of  the  chapter. 


2o6    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

trading  uncle  to  Naples  and  became  tutor  to  the  sons 
of  Charles  II.,  does  not  harmonize  with  these  facts, 
and  we  must  therefore  reject  the  further  charge  that 
he  obtained  his  bishopric  by  forging  a  letter  in  the 
name  of  Charles,  He  seems  rather  to  have  taught  civil 
law  for  a  long  period  at  Cahors,  and  then  at  Toulouse, 
where  he  earned  the  friendship  of  the  Bishop,  St.  Louis, 
and  was  thus  brought  to  the  notice  and  favour  of  the 
Bishop's  father,  the  King  of  Naples.  Charles  secured 
the  bishopric  of  Frejus  for  him  in  1300,  and  made  him 
his  Chancellor  in  1307.  When  Charles  died,  his  son 
Robert  continued  the  patronage  and  got  for  him  the 
bishopric  of  Avignon.  Clement  V.  found  him  a  useful 
man  and  pliant  lawyer.  It  was  he  who  did  the  most 
accommodating  research  for  Clement  in  the  suppression 
of  the  Templars,  and  he  was  rewarded  with  a  red  hat 
in  13 12.  He  was  a  sober  man,  liking  good  solid  fare 
and  regular  ways,  and  kept  his  energy  and  ambition  in 
his  eighth  decade  of  life. 

Robert  of  Naples  pressed  his  candidature  for  the 
Papacy  when  Clement  died,  and  the  Gascons  adopted 
him..  He  won  the  vote  of  Cardinal  Orsini — this  state- 
ment of  his  critics  is  confirmed  by  later  events — by 
professing  a  most  determined  intention  to  transfer  the 
Papacy  to  Rome.  The  anecdotists  say  that  he  swore 
never  to  mount  a  horse  until  he  was  established  at  the 
Lateran;  and,  after  a  gorgeous  coronation-ceremony  at 
Lyons  on  September  5th,  he  at  once  proceeded  by  boat 
to  Avignon.  The  Italian  cardinals  left  him  in  disgust, 
and  he  promptly  promoted  ten  new  cardinals,  of  whom 
nine  were  French  (and  three,  including  his  nephew, 
from  Cahors).  Of  his  later  seventeen  cardinals,  thir- 
teen were  French,  three  Italian,  and  one  Spanish. 
The  Papacy  was  fixed  at  Avignon. 


John  XXII.:  the  Court  at  Avignon     207 

The  little  town  which  Clement  had  chosen  as  the 
seat  of  the  Papacy  had  the  advantage,  in  John's  eyes, 
of  being  separated  from  Philip's  territory  by  the  Rhone 
and  being  under  the  suzerainty  of  Robert  of  Naples. 
It  was  still  a  small,  poorly  built  town.     Clement  had 
found  the  Dominican  monastery  large  enough  for  his 
Epicurean  establishment.     John  returned   at   first   to 
his  old  episcopal  palace,  but  the  great  rock  on  which 
the  Papal  Palace  now  stands  soon  inspired  his  ambi- 
tion and  he  began  assiduously  to  nurse  the  Papal  in- 
come.    Much  of  Clement's  money  had  been  removed 
and  stored  by  his  clever  and  unscrupulous  nephew, 
the  Viscount  Bertrand  de  Goth,  who  would  not  easily 
disgorge  it.     After  a  time  John  asserted  his  spiritual 
power,    and   summoned   the   Viscount   to   present   an 
account.     Three  times  the  noble  ignored  his  summons, 
and  then,  when  John  was  about  to  proceed  against  him, 
he  judiciously  distributed  some  of  the  money  among 
the  cardinals  and  had  the  case  postponed.     At  length 
he  rode  boldly  into  Avignon  to  give  his  account.     He 
had,  he  explained,  with  a  most  insolent  air  of  simplicity 
and  candour,  received  300,000  florins  from  his  uncle. 
This  sum  was  destined  to  be  used  in  the  next  Crusade, 
and  he  had  sworn  on  the  Gospels  not  to  yield  it  for  any 
other  purpose.     John  was  baulked  and  was  compelled 
to  compromise.     They  agreed  to  divide  the  money,  and 
a  receipt  preserved  at  the  Vatican  shows  that  150,000 
florins  were  all  he  obtained  of  Clement's  huge  fortune. 
Clement  had  left  only  70,000  florins  directly  to  his 
successor,  and  half  of  this  had  to  go  to  the  cardinals. 
All  the  rest  Clement  regarded  as  private  fortime  and 
distributed  among  his  friends  and  servants. 

John  turned  to  the  organization  of  the  Papal  income, 
and  his  success  in  this  direction  is  notorious.      Villani 


2o8  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
says  in  his  Florentine  History''  that  at  his  death  John 
left  a  fortune  of  25,000,000  florins^  in  coin  and  jewels. 
Villani  is  hostile,  but  he  affirms  that  he  had  this  infor- 
mation from  his  brother,  who  was  one  of  the  bankers 
appointed  to  appraise  the  sum.  Other  chroniclers 
give  different  figures.  It  happens,  however,  that 
John's  ledgers  are  still  preserved  in  the  Vatican  archives, 
and  as  in  this  case  they  completely  refute  the  anti- 
Papal  chroniclers — a  point  certainly  to  be  carefully 
noted  by  the  historian — they  have  been  published.^ 
Some  of  the  ledgers  are  "  missing,"  but  there  are  general 
statements  (tallying  with  the  separate  ledgers),  and 
from  these  it  appears  that  the  entire  income  of  the 
Papacy  during  the  eighteen  years  of  John's  Pontificate 
was  about  four  and  a  half  million  florins  (or  about 
£120,000  a  year),  and  that  the  greater  part  of  this  was 
spent  on  the  Italian  war.  There  is  an  expenditure  of 
nearly  three  millions  under  the  humorous  heading  of 
"Wax,  and  certain  extraordinary  expenses,"  and  the 
items  show  that  the  Italian  campaign  to  recover  the 
Papal  estates  absorbed  most  of  this.  At  the  same 
time  the  ledgers  do  not  quite  confirm  the  edifying  tradi- 
tion of  John's  sober  and  simple  life.  His  table  and 
cellar  cost  (in  modern  terms)  nearly  £3000  a  year:  his 
"wardrobe"  nearly  £4000  a  year:  and  his  officials  and 
staff  about  £15,000  a  year.  Immense  sums  seem  to 
have  been  given  to  relatives — there  is  one  item  of  72,000 
florins  paid  to  his  brother  Peter  for  certain  estates — 
and  we  know  that  in  1339  he  began  to  build  the  famous 
Papal  Palace. 

'XL,  20. 

'  The  gold  florin  is  estimated  at  about  ten  shillings  of  English  money. 

i  Die  Einnahmen  der  A  postal ischer  Kammer  unter  Johann  XXII. 
(i 910),  by  Dr.  Emil  Goller,  and  Die  Ansgabcn  der  A postolischer  Kammer 
unter  Johann  XXII.  (191 0,  by  K.  H.  Shafer. 


John  XXIL:  the  Court  at  Avignon    209 

In  sum,  the  editors  of  John's  accounts  conclude  that 
the  Papal  treasury  would,  at  his  death,  have  shown  a 
deficit  of  90,000  florins  but  for  a  loan  of  half  a  million 
from  his  private  purse;  and  that  the  total  amount  left 
behind  by  him  (besides  his  valuable  library  of  1028 
volumes,  his  collection  of  329  jewelled  rings,  etc.)  was 
only  about  800,000  florins.  It  is  true  that,  in  spite  of 
the  businesslike  appearance  of  the  ledgers,  we  must 
not  take  this  as  a  statement  of  the  Pope's  entire  estate. 
Vast  sums  were  collected  which  did  not  pass  through 
Avignon,  but  went  straight  to  the  Legate  in  Italy  (and 
possibly  elsewhere).  Moreover,  the  "private  purse" 
of  the  Pope  is  an  interesting  and  obscure  part  of  his 
system.  It  was  discovered  at  his  death  that  he  had  a 
secret  "little  chamber,"  over  one  of  the  corridors,  into 
which  a  large  part  of  the  income  went.  There  are 
historical  indications  that  he  diverted  to  his  private 
account  large  sums  for  military  and  special  political 
purposes.  He  did  not  foresee  how  Clement  VI.  would 
genially  dissipate  it,  with  the  words:  "My  predecessors 
did  not  know  how  to  live."  This  account  was  not  en- 
tered in  books,  and  we  have  to  be  content  with  the 
assurance  that  he  left  at  his  death  rather  less  than  a 
million  florins  in  all. 

Yet  an  income  of — if  we  make  allowance  for  the 
unrecorded  sums — something  like  £200,000  a  year,  at 
a  time  when  the  patrimonies  were  mostly  alienated, 
was  enormous,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the 
statement  of  all  historians  that  it  came  largely  from 
tainted  sources.  John's  fiscal  policy  is  a  stage  in  the 
degeneration  of  the  Papacy.  Clement  IV.  had,  in 
1267,  reserved  to  the  Pope  the  income  of  the  benefices 
of  clerks  who  died  at  Rome,  and  Boniface  VIII.  had 
enlarged  this  by  including  all  who  died  within  a  two 
14 


210    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

days*  journey  of  Rome.  John  extended  the  law  through- 
out the  Church  and  demanded  three  years'  revenue  for 
each  that  fell  vacant.  By  his  Bull  Execrabilis  he  or- 
dered all  clerks  (except  his  cardinals)  who  held  several 
benefices  to  select  one  and  surrender  the  rest  to  the 
Apostolic  See.  He  created  bishoprics — he  made  six 
out  of  the  bishopric  of  Toulouse — by  subdividing  actual 
sees  (on  the  plea,  of  course,  that  the  duties  would  be 
better  discharged),  and  by  an  astute  system  of  promo- 
tions he,  when  a  see  fell  vacant,  contrived  to  move 
several  men  and  secure  the  "first  fruits"  on  their  ap- 
pointments: a  vacant  archbishopric,  for  instance, 
would  be  filled  by  a  higher  bishop,  the  higher  bishopric 
by  a  lower  bishop,  and  so  on.  It  was  possible  to  put  a 
complexion  of  reform  on  all  these  measures,  but  clergy 
and  laity  muttered  a  charge  of  avarice.  Then  there 
were  the  incomes  from  kingdoms  and  duchies  (England, 
Aragon,  Portugal,  Naples,  Sicily,  Corsica,  Sardinia, 
and  Spoleto)  which  owed  an  annual  tribute,  the  yield 
of  the  surviving  patrimonies,  the  taxes  on  dispensations 
and  grants,  and  a  certain  beginning  of  the  sale  of  in- 
dulgences which,  unfortunately,  we  cannot  closely 
ascertain. 

John  was  not  wholly  immersed  in  finance  and  insen- 
sible of  higher  duties.  He  created  universities  at 
Cahors  and  Perugia,  regulated  the  studies  at  Oxford, 
Cambridge,  and  Paris,  and  even  (as  we  shall  see)  con- 
cerned himself  with  the  state  of  the  East.  But  the 
only  council  we  trace  under  his  control  (held  at  St. 
Ruf,  in  1326)  was  almost  entirely  concerned  with  eccle- 
siastical property  and  immunities,  and  his  correspond- 
ence is,  in  effect,  almost  wholly  fiscal  and  political. 
He  greatly  enlarged  the  Rota  (or  legal  and  business 
part  of  the  Curia),  and  filled  it  with  a  cosmopolitan 


John  XXIL:  the  Court  at  Avignon    211 

staff  of  clerks,  to  deal  with  this  large  and  lucrative  side 
of  his  affairs.  It  is  pleaded  that  the  Papacy  could  not 
discharge  its  duties  without  this  wealth  and  power; 
and  it  must  seem  unfortunate  that  the  acquisition  and 
maintenance  of  the  wealth  and  power  left  so  little  time 
for  the  duties  they  were  to  enable  the  Pope  to  discharge. 

Watered  by  this  stream  of  gold,  Avignon  flourished. 
John  was  generous  to  his  family  and  his  cardinals: 
palaces  began  to  rise  above  the  lowly  roofs  of  the  town : 
a  gay  and  coloured  life  filled  its  streets.  A  Papal 
household  costing  £25,000  a  year  would  of  itself  make 
an  impression.  We  know  Avignon  best  in  the  later 
and  even  richer  days  of  Benedict  XII.  and  Clement 
VI.  who  followed  John.  Not  far  away,  even  in  the 
days  of  John,  dwelt  a  writer  who  was  destined  to  im- 
mortality, and  he  passed  scathing  criticisms  on  Avignon. 
Petrarch  is  a  rhetorician  and  poet,  as  well  as  a  fierce 
opponent  of  the  Avignon  Papacy,  but  one  cannot  lightly 
disregard  his  assurance  that  Papal  Avignon  was  "  Baby- 
lon," " a  living  hell,"  and  "  the  sink  of  all  vices." '  He 
is  chiefly  describing  Avignon  under  Clement  VI.,  but 
he  says  that  it  is  only  a  change  "from  bad  to  worse" 
since  John's  days. 

An  episode  that  occurred  soon  after  John's  elevation 
is,  perhaps,  more  convincing  than  Petrarch's  fiery 
rhetoric,  since  its  features  were  determined  in  a  legal 
process.  Hugues  Geraud,  a  favourite  of  Clement  V., 
had  obtained  from  that  Pope  the  bishopric  of  Cahors, 
paying  the  Papal  tax  of  a  thousand  florins  for  it.      He 

'  See,  especially,  the  book  of  his  letters  "Sine  titulo,"  most  of  which 
contain  appalling  invectives  on  the  Popes  and  cardinals  and  clergy. 
Epistola  xviii,  is  a  classical  picture  of  vice,  even  among  the  elderly  clergy. 
Its  chief  defect  is  to  associate  the  name  of  tolerably  respectable  Babylon 
with  such  a  picture. 


212    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

proceeded  to  make  his  possession  as  lucrative  as  pos- 
sible and  live  comfortably  on  the  revenue  his  clerks 
extorted  for  him.  John's  townsfolk  appealed  to  him, 
as  soon  as  he  settled  in  Avignon,  and  he  summoned  the 
Bishop  to  his  court.  Hugues  Geraud  sealed  the  lips 
of  his  priests  by  an  oath  of  silence,  but,  of  course,  a 
Pope  could  undo  that  seal,  and  the  inquiry  revealed 
enormities  on  the  part  of  the  Bishop.  Toward  the 
close  of  the  inquiry  certain  men  were  arrested  bringing 
mysterious  packages  into  the  town.  They  had  with 
them  various  poisons  and  certain  little  wax  images 
concealed  in  loaves.  The  Bishop  and  his  chief  clerks 
were  at  once  arrested,  and,  although  the  Papal  officials 
used  torture  to  open  their  lips,  the  substance  of  their 
story  seems  reliable.  Fearful  of  the  issue,  Hugues 
Geraud  had  applied  to  a  Jew  at  Toulouse,  and  to  others, 
for  these  poisons  and  wax  images.  It  was  proved  in 
court  that  members  of  the  Papal  household,  including 
a  cardinal,  were  bribed  to  facilitate  the  poisoning,  and 
that  the  wax  images,  which  were  not  effective  without 
the  blessing  of  some  prelate,  were  actually  blessed  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Toulouse.  The  Archbishop  pleaded  that 
he  had  no  suspicion  of  the  awful  purpose  of  these  images 
— familiar  as  they  were  in  the  Middle  Ages — but  he 
soon  fled  from  Toulouse,  and  it  is  conjectured  that  he 
had  hoped  that  the  death  of  the  Pope  would  save  his 
diocese  (and  income)  from  the  threatened  dismember- 
ment.' 

Some  of  these  images  had  already  been  smuggled 
into  Avignon  and  the  Bishop  and  his  archpriest  had, 
in  the  well-known  mediaeval  manner,  set  up  one  of  them 

'  Sec  a  full  (and  conservative)  analysis  of  the  evidence  in  E.  Al^be's 
Hugues  Geraud  (1904).  I  am  entirely  ignoring  the  gossipy  chroniclers 
of  the  time,  whom  Milman  too  frequently  follows. 


John  XXII. :  the  Court  at  Avignon    213 

as  representative  of  the  Pope's  nephew,  Cardinal 
Jacques  de  Via,  and  stabbed  it  in  the  belly  and  legs 
with  silver  styles,  while  the  wicked  Jew  repeated  the 
suitable  imprecations,  John  XXII.  fully  shared  the 
views  of  his  age  in  regard  to  these  magical  practices, 
and  we  can  imagine  how  he  and  others  were  confirmed 
in  that  belief  when,  in  the  course  of  the  trial,  Jacques  de 
Via  sickened  and  died.  The  trial  came  to  a  speedy  con- 
clusion. The  Bishop  of  Cahors  was  dragged  by  horses 
through  the  town  and  burned  at  the  stake :  his  numerous 
clerical  and  lay  accomplices  were  adequately  punished: 
and  John  spurred  the  Inquisitors  to  a  deadly  campaign 
against  magicians  throughout  the  country.  Some  of 
the  cardinals  were  involved  in  this  or  a  similar  plot, 
but  John  shrewdly  disarmed  them  with  gold  rather 
than  make  powerful  enemies. 

These  details  will  suffice  to  make  clear  the  state  of 
the  clergy  and  laity  at  the  close  of  a  century  which 
some  writers  appraise  as  one  of  profound  inspiration, 
and  we  must  go  on  to  consider  the  large  policy  which 
John's  wealth  was  intended  to  support.  The  central 
theme  is,  once  more,  the  political  struggle  with  the 
Emperor — the  undying  curse  which  temporal  power 
had  brought  with  it — but  we  cannot  understand  this 
aright  unless  we  first  regard  a  spiritual  struggle  of 
great  interest. 

The  followers  of  Francis  of  Assisi  had  branched  into 
the  customary  parties  of  rigourists  and  liberals.  On 
the  one  hand  were  the  great  body  of  the  friars,  living 
in  large  comfortable  monasteries,  raising  a  stupendously 
rich  church  over  the  bones  of  their  ascetic  founder. 
On  the  other  hand  were  the  faithful  minority,  the 
genuinely  ascetic,  casting  withering  reproaches  on  the 
liberals,  assimilating  much  of  the  mystic  and — we  may 


214    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

justly  say — protestant  feeling  which  was  growing  in 
Europe.  There  were  bloody  conflicts  as  well  as  highly 
seasoned  arguments.  The  "Spirituals"  and  "Fratri- 
celli"  could  not  but  regard  the  wealth  and  sensuahty 
of  the  higher  clergy  as  an  apostasy  from  the  Christian 
ideal,  and  they  had  become  one  of  the  most  pronounced 
"protestant"  sects  of  the  time  and  were  anathematized 
repeatedly  by  the  Popes.  During  the  Papal  vacancy 
the  Spirituals  had  prospered  and  become  more  strident. 
Christendom  had  apostatized,  and  they  were  the  heralds 
of  a  new  religion,  revealed  to  Francis  of  Assisi.  This 
arrogant  Papacy  and  priesthood  must  disappear  before 
true  religion  can  flourish. 

In  the  spring  of  13 17  John  condemned  them,  and, 
when  they  still  preached  revolt,  summoned  about  sixty 
of  them  to  Avignon.  They  used  very  plain  speech 
and  received  a  very  plain  reply.  The  Papacy  had  now 
discovered  that  persistent  or  "contumacious"  disobe- 
dience amounted  to  heresy,  and  the  Inquisitors  be- 
longed to  the  rival  Dominican  order.  So  several  sons 
of  St.  Francis  were  burned  at  the  stake — four  were 
burned  at  Marseilles  on  May  7,  13 18 — and  many  were 
cast  into  prison.  But  John  went  too  far.  He  ordered 
the  Franciscan  authorities  to  consider  whether  absolute 
poverty  was  the  genuine  basis  of  their  rule,  and  they 
decided  that  it  was:  in  the  sense  of  a  Bull  {Exiit  qui 
sejninat)  of  Nicholas  III.,  which  allowed  them  "the 
use"  of  things  without  the  actual  "ownership."  John 
revoked  the  Bull,  and  in  a  Decretal  of  December  8, 
1322  (Ad  Conditorem) ,  declared  that  this  was  impos- 
sible nonsense.  When  the  friars  retorted  that  such 
poverty  had  actually  been  practised  by  Christ  and  his 
Apostles,  John  consulted  the  learned  doctors  of  Paris 
and,  in  the  Decretal  Cum  inter  nonnullos    (November 


John  XXII. :  the  Court  at  Avignon    215 

12,  1323),  pronounced  this  thesis  heretical.  The 
"Spirituals"  were  now  reinforced  by  abler  men,  who 
fled  to  Italy  and  joined  the  anti-Papal  campaign  of 
Louis  of  Bavaria.  Michael  de  Cesena,  the  General 
of  the  Order,  nailed  to  the  door  of  Pisa  cathedral  a 
document  in  which  he  impeached  John  for  heresy. 
William  of  Ockham,  the  English  friar,  one  of  the  most 
acute  of  the  later  schoolmen,  and  others,  discharged 
a  shower  of  invectives  which  would  have  made  the 
fortune  of  a  sixteenth-century  Reformer.  John  was 
"Anti-Christ,"  the  "Dragon  with  Seven  Heads,"  and 
so  on.  They  induced  Louis  of  Bavaria  to  declare 
John's  Decretals  heretical,  and  fought  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  the  learned  Paris  doctors,  Marsiglio  of 
Padua  and  Jean  of  Jandun,  whose  Defensor  Pads 
(1324)  was  a  crushing  indictment  of  the  Papal  preten- 
sions and  vindication  of  the  secular  power.  All  over 
Italy  and  Germany  there  was  a  fierce  scrutiny  of  the 
bases  of  the  Papal  claims.  The  Reformation  was 
commencing,  two  centuries  before  Luther. 

The  spiritual  struggle  had  thus  merged  in  the  political 
struggle,  owing  to  the  common  opposition  to  John  XXIL, 
and  this  must  now  be  considered.  Frederic  of  Austria 
and  Louis  of  Bavaria  were  both  chosen  King  of  the 
Romans,  and,  as  neither  had  had  the  full  number  of 
votes,  there  was  the  not  unfamiliar  struggle  for  recogni- 
tion. They  disregarded  John's  summons  to  his  tri- 
bunal, took  to  the  sword,  and  Frederic  was  beaten 
and  imprisoned  in  1322.  John  coldly  acknowledged 
Louis's  letter  announcing  his  victory;  unquestionably 
he  from  the  first  wanted  the  imperial  crown  to  pass  to 
France  and  the  imperial  rule  to  vanish  from  Italy. 
Then  Louis  invaded  Italy,  and  John  declared  war. 

Italy  already  gave  the  Pope  concern.     The  Ghibel- 


2i6    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

lines,  or  Imperialists,  had  grown  powerful  in  the  Pope's 
absence,  and  their  chief  leader,  Matteo  Visconti  of 
Milan,  a  ruthless  and  exacting  ruler,  was  "Imperial 
Vicar"  in  the  country.  When  Visconti,  in  defiance  of 
the  Pope's  commands,  gave  aid  to  the  Ghibellines  of 
Genoa,  John,  who  claimed  to  represent  the  Empire 
during  the  "vacancy,"  withdrew  his  title  of  Vicar  and 
awarded  it  to  Robert  of  Naples.  Robert  went  to  con- 
sult John  at  Avignon,  and  a  campaign  followed.  Car- 
dinal Bertrand  de  Poyet — who  was,  says  Petrarch,  so 
much  like  John  "in  face  and  ferocity"'  that  one  could 
easily  credit  the  rumour  that  he  was  John's  son — was 
sent  to  direct  the  Papal  cause  and  to  denounce  the 
Viscontis  to  the  Inquisition.  Matteo  was  found  guilty 
of  heresy  (or  contumacious  refusal  to  abandon  the  title 
of  Vicar),  and  he  and  his  son  were  charged  with  oppres- 
sion of  the  clergy  (which  is  plausible  enough)  and  with 
a  quaint  and  amusing  mixture  of  magic  and  other 
devilry.^  Possibly  John  relied  more  confidently  on 
the  troops  of  Philip  of  Valois  and  Henry  of  Austria, 
whom  he  successively  summoned  to  Italy;  but  they 
retired  almost  without  a  blow.  Matteo  repented  and 
died,  but  his  sons  and  their  associates  continued  the 
war. 

At  this  juncture  Louis  conquered  Frederic  and  sent 
word  to  the  Legate  to  keep  his  troops  out  of  imperial 
territory.  When  the  Legate  refused,  he  joined  the 
Ghibellines  and  drew  from  John  a  vigorous  denuncia- 
tion.    He  was  to  abandon  the  "heretics"  and  come  to 


'  Ep.  xvii.  of  the  book  "Sine  titulo." 

*See  Michel,  "Le  Proces  de  Matteo  et  de  Galeazzo  Visconti,"  in 
Melanges  d'archeologie  et  d'hisloire,  xxix.  (1909),  and  H.  Otto,  "Zur 
Italienischen  PoUtik  Johanns  XXII.,"  in  Quellcn  und  Forschungen  aus 
Italienischen  Archivcn  und  Bibliotheken,  Bd.  xix.  (191 1). 


John  XXIL:  the  Court  at  Avignon    217 

Avignon  for  the  examination  of  his  claim  to  the  Empire. 
Louis,  retorting  (under  the  inspiration  of  the  friars)  that 
there  were  heretics  at  Avignon  as  well  as  in  Italy,  went 
his  way,  and  John  turned  to  France.  Charles  the 
Fair,  the  new  King,  had  discovered  that,  when  Clement 
V.  had  authorized  his  marriage  with  Blanche  of  Bur- 
gundy, a  remote  godmothership  had  been  overlooked, 
and  he  was  in  the  painful  position  of  living  with  one  to 
whom  he  was  not  validly  married.  John  declared  the 
marriage  void,  allowed  Charles  to  marry  another  lady, 
and  was  soon  in  conference  with  Charles  and  with 
Robert  of  Naples.  Germany  took  alarm  at  this  plain 
hint  of  an  intention  to  make  Charles  Emperor;  the 
Italian  spiritual  war  upon  the  Pope  was  vigorously 
repeated  in  that  country,  and  the  Diet  of  Ratisbon 
rejected  John's  authority  and  called  for  a  General 
Council. 

Louis,  in  1326,  became  reconciled  with  Frederic  of 
Austria  and  was  recognized  in  Germany  as  sole  Emperor, 
but  John  had  gone  too  far  to  withdraw,  or  was  too 
deeply  involved  with  Charles  of  France  and  Robert  of 
Naples.  In  alliance  with  the  GhibelHnes,  Louis  made 
a  triumphant  tour  over  Italy,  and  on  April  18,  1328, 
to  the  immense  joy  of  his  throng  of  rebel  supporters, 
solemnly  declared,  in  St.  Peter's,  that  "James  of 
Cahors"  was  guilty  of  heresy  and  treason.^  Friar 
Peter  of  Corbara  was  substituted  for  him,  with  the 
name  of  Nicholas  V.,  and  Rome  exulted  in  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Papacy.  But  the  drama  ended  as  it  had 
often  ended  before.  Louis  oppressed  the  country  and 
alienated  his  supporters ;  and  before  the  end  of  the  year 
Friar  Peter  was,  with  a  halter  round  his  neck,  at  the 
Pope's  feet  in  Avignon  and  Louis  was  back  in  Germany. 

'  Baluze,  ii.,  512;  and  a  later  indictment,  p.  522. 


2i8    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

John  refused  to  compromise  honourably  with  Louis, 
and  the  agitation  against  the  Papacy  in  Germany, 
whither  all  the  rebels  had  now  gone,  was  more  bitter 
than  ever. 

The  next  phase  of  the  struggle  is  not  wholly  clear. 
John  of  Bohemia  intervened  and  overran  Italy.  It 
seems  probable  that  the  Pope  had  nothing  to  do  with 
this  invasion,  and  at  first  suspected  that  John  was  in 
league  with  Louis ;  but  that,  as  John  made  progress  and 
had  friendly  communication  with  Avignon,  the  Pope 
began  to  hope  that  the  new  development  offered  him  a 
stronger  King  of  Italy  (under  Papal  suzerainty)  than 
Robert  and  a  less  oppressive  protector  than  Philip  VI. 
of  France.'  Philip  and  John  visited  the  Pope  at 
Avignon,  and  it  was  announced  that  John  was  to  be 
recognized  as  King  of  part  of  Italy.  The  curious  alli- 
ance of  the  three  reveals  some  miscalculation.  Philip 
must  have  trusted  that  John  of  Bohemia  would  work 
for  him,  but  the  Pope  had  assuredly  no  idea  of  abandon- 
ing his  claim  to  Italy.  The  issue  was  singular.  The 
Italians,  in  face  of  this  alliance,  united  under  Robert  of 
Naples  and  overcame  the  Papal  and  Bohemian  troops. 
John  had,  as  part  of  the  campaign,  announced  his  in- 
tention of  transferring  the  Papal  Court  to  Bologna, 
and  the  Legate  actually  began  to  erect  a  palace  for  him. 
When  the  Bolognese  realized  that  John  had  no  serious 
intention  of  coming,  they  joined  the  Imperialists  and 
cast  out  the  Legate  and  his  troops.  It  is  said  that  the 
collapse  of  his  costly  Italian  campaign  weighed  so 
heavily  on  the  Pope  that  he  did  not  leave  his  palace 
during  the  year  of  life  which  still  remained. 

John's  relations  with  other  countries  are  not  of  great 
interest.     He  was  almost  the  master,  rather  than  the 

'  See  the  essay  on  John's  policy,  by  H.  Otto,  quoted  above. 


John  XXII.:  the  Court  at  Avignon    219 

slave,  of  the  three  French  monarchs  who  ruled  during 
his  Pontificate,  and  some  of  his  letters  paternally  chide 
them  for  such  defects  as  talking  in  church.  In  letters  to 
Edward  of  England  he  tried  to  reconcile  that  monarch 
with  Robert  Bruce,  and  he  begged  more  humane  treat- 
ment of  the  Irish,  who  had  appealed  for  his  interven- 
tion. In  Poland  he  excommunicated  the  Teutonic 
knights  for  taking  Danzig  and  Pomerania  from  King 
Ladislas.  His  eye  wandered  even  farther  afield.  He 
was  genuinely  interested  in  the  fate  of  Christians  in 
the  East,  and  sent  a  mission  to  the  Sultan,  who  sharply 
dismissed  it.  No  Pope  had,  in  a  sense,  a  wider  horizon, 
for  John  not  only  sent  friars  to  preach  in  Armenia  and 
Persia,  but  actually  appointed  a  Legate  for  India, 
China,  and  Thibet.  Yet  his  ruling  of  the  Christian 
world  was  singularly  slender  in  comparison  with  that  of 
his  great  predecessors.  His  energy  was  absorbed  in 
fiscal  and  political  matters.  In  co-operation  with  Philip 
he  sent  a  fleet  against  the  Saracens,  and  it  won  a  victory, 
but  the  Crusade  he  announced  on  July  26,  1333,  never 
went  beyond  that  naval  success.  On  the  other  hand, 
when  the  Pastoureaux,  a  wild  rabble,  marched  over 
France  proclaiming  a  popular  Crusade,  John  excom- 
municated them  for  taking  the  cross  without  his  per- 
mission; of  their  appalling  treatment  of  the  Jews  he 
made  no  complaint,  nor  did  he  move  when  the  lepers  of 
France  were  brutally  persecuted  on  some  superstitious 
charge  of  the  time.  He  was  oppressive  to  the  Jews, 
and  ordered  the  burning  of  the  Talmud. 

He  has,  in  fi.ne,  the  distinction  of  putting  forward  a 
doctrine  which  his  Church  condemns  as  heretical. 
Preaching  on  All  Saints'  Day  in  1331,  he  suggested  that 
probably  the  saints  did  not  enjoy  the  direct  vision  (or 
Beatific  Vision)  of  God  in  heaven,  and  would  not  do 


220    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

so  until  after  the  Day  of  Judgment.  There  is  no  doubt 
whatever  that  he  held  this  as  an  opinion,  though  he 
made  no  effort  to  impose  it  on  others ;  beyond  a  certain 
liberality  in  bestowing  benefices  on  clerics  who  sup- 
ported him.  There  was  a  violent  agitation  in  France. 
The  Dominican  friars  and  the  universities  strongly 
opposed  the  view,  and,  when  the  General  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan Order  thought  it  advantageous  to  support  the 
Pope,  the  King  of  France  swore  that  he  would  not 
have  his  realm  sullied  by  the  heresy.  This  agitation, 
and  John's  correspondence  with  Philip  VI.,  make  it 
quite  clear  that  the  Pope  held  the  heresy,  as  an  opinion. 
A  few  days  before  he  died,  however,  he  wrote  a  Bull — ■ 
at  least,  such  a  Bull  was  published  by  his  successor — 
endorsing  the  received  doctrine  and  declaring  that  he 
had  put  forward  his  theory  only  "by  way  of  con- 
ference." 

He  died  on  December  4,  1334,  bowed  with  age  and 
saddened  by  the  failure  of  his  work.  A  more  complete 
study  of  his  letters  than  has  yet  been  made  may  in 
some  measure  enlarge  our  knowledge  of  his  properly 
Pontifical  action,  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
money  and  politics  chiefly  engrossed  his  attention. 
The  chief  interest  of  his  Pontificate  is  the  light  it  throws 
on  the  preparation  for  the  Reformation.  John's  fiscal 
policy,  however  much  open  to  censure,  was  unselfish; 
but  he  opened  to  his  even  less  religious  successors  the 
road  to  disaster. 


CHAPTER  XI 

JOHN  XXIII.   AND  THE  GREAT  SCHISM 

THE  next  important  stage  in  the  devolution  of  the 
Papacy  is  the  Great  Schism,  the  spectacle  of 
which  moved  the  increasing  body  of  cultivated  laymen 
and  the  better  clergy  to  examine  critically  the  bases  of 
the  Papal  claims  and  seek  an  authority  which  should 
control  the  wanton  conduct  of  the  Popes.  The  essen- 
tial mischief  of  the  long  stay  of  the  Papal  Court  at 
Avignon  is  obscured  when  it  is  called  a  Babylonian 
Captivity.  Few  of  the  Popes  were  servile  to  France, 
and  it  was  not  France  that  detained  them  on  the  banks 
of  the  Rhone.  The  gravest  consequences  of  their 
voluntary  exile  were,  that  the  isolation  from  their 
Italian  estates  led  them  to  pursue  a  corrupt  and  intol- 
erable fiscal  policy:  that  the  College  of  Cardinals  de- 
generated and  became  less  scrupulous  in  the  choice  of  a 
Pope :  and,  especially,  that  the  rival  ambition  of  French 
and  Italian  cardinals  to  control  the  Papacy  led  to  an 
appalling  schism.  This  phase  will  be  best  illustrated 
by  an  account  of  the  antecedents  and  the  remarkable 
Pontificate  of  John  XXIII. 

The  return  of  the  Papal  Court  to  Rome  was  mainly 
due  to  political  causes.  Clement  VI.  (i 342-1 352), 
whose  voluptuous  indolence  ignobly  crowned  the  fiscal 
system  of  John  XXII. ,  was  followed  by  three  Popes 

221 


222    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

who  at  least  desired  reform.  The  third  of  these, 
Gregory  XI.,  was  too  weak  or  resourceless  to  curb  the 
ruthless  action  of  his  Legates  in  Italy,  and  the  sight  of 
wild  Breton  mercenaries  and  hardly  less  wild  English  ad- 
venturers (of  Hawkwood's  infamous  company)  spread- 
ing rape  and  rapine  under  the  Papal  banner,  disgusted 
the  cities  and  states  of  the  Peninsula.  Under  the  lead 
of  Florence,  they  proceeded  to  affirm  and  establish  the 
independence  of  Italy.  It  was  this  threat,  rather  than 
the  romantic  rebukes  of  a  young  nun  (Catherine  of 
Siena),  which  drew  Gregory  XI.,  in  1376,  from  the  safe 
and  luxiirious  palace-fortress  at  Avignon.  A  month 
after  his  arrival  at  Rome  the  Breton  hirelings  under 
Cardinal  Robert  of  Geneva  committed  a  frightful 
massacre  at  Cesena,  and  Gregory  was  almost  driven 
back  to  Avignon  by  the  storm  which  ensued.  But  he 
died  on  March  27,  1378,  and  the  cardinals  met  nervously 
at  Rome  to  choose  a  successor. 

The  din  of  the  bloody  encounter  of  Gascon,  Breton, 
and  Roman  troops  in  the  streets  reached  the  cardinals 
in  the  privacy  of  the  Conclave.  One  day,  indeed,  the 
armed  Romans  burst  into  the  sacred  chamber,  and 
brandished  their  weapons  before  the  eyes  of  the  terri- 
fied French  cardinals.  Yet  it  is  generally  agreed  that 
there  was  not  such  compulsion  as  to  invalidate  the 
election,  and  Urban  VI.  became  the  legitimate  head  of 
the  Church.  In  the  circumstances  a  delicate  and  tact- 
ful policy  was  required,  and  the  austere  Neapolitan, 
of  humble  birth,  who  secured  the  tiara  was  in  this 
respect  the  least  fitted  of  the  cardinals.  He  violently 
and  vituperatively  denounced  the  wealth  and  luxury 
of  his  colleagues,  and  he  alienated  Italians  no  less  than 
French  by  the  grossness  of  his  manners.  Within  a 
few  months   the   French    cardinals    retired   to    Fondi, 


John  XXII I.  and  the  Great  Schism    223 

discovered  that  the  election  was  invalid  on  account 
of  intimidation,  and  set  up  Robert  of  Geneva,  a  ruthless 
soldier  and  entirely  worldly-minded  priest,  as  Anti- 
Pope,  with  the  title  of  Clement  VII.  So  the  schism 
began,  and  Christendom  split  into  two  bitterly  hostile 
"obediences."  Clement  retired  to  Avignon,  and  preyed 
on  France  more  avariciously  than  John  XXII.  had 
done:  Urban's  impetuous  rudeness  wrapped  Italy  in 
a  flame  of  war  once  more.  In  1389  another  Neapolitan, 
Boniface  IX.,  succeeded  Urban,  and  it  is  during  his 
Pontificate  that  there  came  upon  the  scene  Baldassare 
Cossa,  the  unscrupulous  adventurer  who  became  John 
XXIII. 

Cossa  was  a  Neapolitan,  and  is  said  by  his  hostile 
contemporary  Dietrich  von  Nieheim  to  have  been  a 
pirate  in  his  youth.  ^  Many  recent  historians  reject 
this  statement,  but  as  it  is  certain  and  admitted  that 
Cossa's  two  brothers  were  condemned  to  death  for 
piracy  by  Ladislaus  of  Naples,  and  it  is  clear  that  in 
his  youth  Cossa  took  some  part  in  the  Angevin-Nea- 
politan war,  it  is  not  improbable  that  Baldassare  was 
himself  engaged  in  raiding  the  Neapolitan  commerce. 
He  was  born  about  1368,  of  a  noble  but  impoverished 
Neapolitan  house,  and  he  seems  to  have  been  known  to 


^  Historia  de  Vita  Papa  Joannis  XXIII.,  which  must  be  cited  with 
reserve,  as  the  author  had  a  bitter  quarrel  with  John  and  is  often  inac- 
curate. See  C.  Hunger,  Zur  Ceschichte  Papst  Johanns  XXIII.  (1876). 
More  reHable  are  the  references  in  the  Commentarii  rerum  suo  tempore 
in  Italia  gestarum  (in  Muratori,  Rerum  Italicarum  scriptores,  xix.),  of 
Leonardo  of  Arezzo,  at  one  time  John's  secretary.  Leonardo's  temper- 
ate verdict,  that  John  was  "a  great  man  in  temporal  things,  but  a  com- 
plete failure  and  unworthy  in  spiritual  things,"  is  endorsed  by  all. 
Exhaustive  bibliographies  will  be  found  in  E.  J.  Kitto's  excellent  works, 
In  the  Days  of  the  Councils  (1908),  and  Pope  John  the  Twenty-third  and 
Master  John  IIus  of  Bohemia  (1910). 


224    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

the  Neapolitan  Pope.  In  his  early  twenties  he  forsook 
the  army  or  the  sea,  for  which  alone  he  was  qualified, 
and  went  to  study  law  at  Bologna.  In  1392  Boniface 
made  him  Archdeacon  at  Bologna:  in  1396  he  was 
summoned  to  the  office  of  Private  Chamberlain  at 
Rome,  and  his  career  began. 

He  was  a  typical  Neapolitan — dark-eyed,  keen- 
witted, of  very  robust  frame  and  very  frail  moral  in- 
stincts— and  the  Pope  needed  such  men.  During  the 
first  seven  years  of  his  Pontificate  Boniface  was  kept 
in  check  by  the  older  cardinals,  but,  as  they  died,  he 
sought  money  by  fair  or  foul  means  for  the  recovery  of 
Italy.  France  and  Spain  sent  their  gifts  to  Avignon, 
and  England  and  Germany  were  not  generous.  Bene- 
fices, from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  were  sold  daily, 
and  the  "first  fruits"  were  demanded  in  advance.  As 
the  system  developed,  spies  were  employed  over  Italy 
and  Germany  to  report  on  the  health  of  aged  benefici- 
aries, and  there  was  a  sordid  traffic  in  "expectations." 
Baldassare  Cossa,  the  chief  instrument  of  this  gross 
simony,  had  various  scales  of  payment,  and  the  pur- 
chaser of  the  "expectation"  of  a  benefice  might  find 
it  sold  over  him  to  a  higher  bidder  for  a  "preference." 
I A  Jubilee  had  been  announced  for  the  year  1390,  and 
Boniface  got  the  fruits  of  it,  but  this  did  not  deter  him 
from  reaping  another  golden  harvest  from  a  Jubilee 
in  1400.  As,  moreover,  many  pilgrims,  especially  in 
Germany  and  Scandinavia,  were  deterred  from  coming 
to  Rome  by  the  bands  of  robbers  and  ravishers  who 
infested  the  Papal  estates,  Boniface  generously  enacted 
that  Germans  might  obtain  the  same  pardon  by  visiting 
certain  shrines  nearer  home  and  paying  to  Papal  agents 
the  cost  of  a  journey  to  Rome. 

These  simoniacal  practices  are  established  and  ad- 


John  XXIII.  and  the  Great  Schism    225 

mitted,  quite  apart  from  the  testimony  of  Dietrich. 
We  must,  indeed,  admit  the  evidence  of  Dietrich  when 
he  tells  us  that  he  saw  these  Papal  agents  spread  their 
silk  curtains  and  unfold  their  Papal  banners  in  the 
churches  of  Germany,  and  heard  them  declare  to  the 
ignorant  people  that  St.  Peter  himself  had  not  greater 
power  than  they.  We  may  also  easily  believe  his  as- 
surance that  many  of  the  German  clergy  denounced  this 
traffic  in  indulgences^  and  that  it  brought  enormous 
sums  to  the  Papacy.  But  the  precise  sums,  and  the 
romantic  stories,  which  Dietrich  gives  on  hearsay, 
especially  in  regard  to  Cossa,  must  be  regarded  with 
reserve.  He  says  that  Cossa,  when  Legate  at  Bologna, 
arrested  one  of  these  monk-agents  returning  to  Rome 
with  his  bags  of  gold  and  relieved  him;  and  that  the 
monk  hanged  himself  in  despair.  These  are  fragments 
of  foolish  rumour.  We  cannot  deal  so  summarily  with 
his  statement  that  the  Chamberlain  had  his  percentage 
of  the  profits  and  let  it  grow  in  the  hands  of  the  usurers ; 
and  that  he  extorted  money  from  prelates  by  menda- 
ciously representing  that  Boniface  was  angry  with  them 
and  offering  to  mediate.  All  that  we  can  say  with 
confidence  is  that  Cossa  was  the  chief  instrument  of 
the  Pope's  nefarious  system,  and  that,  although  he  had 
no  private  means,  he  amassed  an  enormous  fortune. 

■  As  in  modern  Spain,  the  word  "  traffic  "  or  "  sale  "  would  be  resented. 
The  theory  is  that  you  give  an  alms  to  the  Church  and  the  Church 
grants  the  indulgence.  The  amount  of  the  alms  is  fixed  according  to 
the  grace  required :  there  are  four  different  iw/ai  in  Spain  today.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  add  that  the  agents  did  not  officially  sell  the  pardon 
of  sins,  but  the  remission  of  the  punishment  due  in  Purgatory  for  such 
iins  as  were  confessed.  Nevertheless  we  have  the  official  assurance  of 
the  Council  of  Constance  (art.  20)  that  John  XXIII.  "sold  absolution 
both  from  punishment  and  guilt,"  and  there  are  other  indications  of 
this  grave  abuse. 

IS 


226    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

The  Council  of  Constance  established  this  charge 
against  him,  as  we  shall  see. 

In  1402,  Cossa  became  Cardinal-deacon  of  St. 
Eustace — the  Council  of  Constance  found  that  he 
bought  that  dignity — and  in  the  following  year  he  was 
made  Legate  at  Bologna.  We  cannot  control  Dietrich's 
statement  that  the  Pope  wished  to  put  an  end  to  a  scan- 
dalous liaison  of  Cossa's  at  Rome.  It  is  not  improb- 
able, and  would  not  be  very  unusual  at  Rome,  but  the 
fact  is  that  he  knew  Bologna  and  was  a  soldier,  and 
Boniface  needed  a  soldier-legate  in  the  north.  In  a 
very  short  time  Cossa  won  Bologna  from  the  Milanese 
troops  and  made  it  a  prosperous  and  profitable  Papal 
possession.  He  fortified  it  and  restored  its  institutions, 
even  establishing  a  university  of  a  very  liberal  character. 
But  he  ruled  it  with  an  iron  hand  and  ground  it  with 
taxes.  Even  its  gamblers  and  prostitutes  had  to  pay 
the  tithe  of  their  earnings,  and  the  grumblers  who  con- 
stantly revolted  or  attempted  to  assassinate  Cossa  were 
mercilessly  punished.  Dietrich  boldly  accuses  him 
of  violating  two  hundred  maids  and  matrons  of  the 
city,  but  we  can  do  no  more  than  suspect  that  there 
must  have  been  some  foundation  for  so  large  a  repute. 
Again  the  Council  of  Constance  sustains  the  substance 
of  the  charge. 

Boniface  died  on  September  29,  1404,  and  Cossa  was 
not  present  at  the  Conclave.  He  had  constantly  to 
lead  his  troops  against  external  as  well  as  internal 
enemies.  The  new  Pope,  Innocent  VII.,  spent  two 
futile  years  in  dreams  of  peace,  and  in  November,  1406, 
the  See  again  fell  vacant.  Christendom  now  clamoured 
for  an  end  of  the  scandalous  schism,  and,  when  Gregory 
XII.,  an  ascetic  and  worn  old  cardinal,  assumed  the 
tiara,   he  was  greeted   as   "an   angel  of  light."     He 


John  XXIII.  and  the  Great  Schism    227 

thanked  God,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  that  he  was  chosen 
to  end  the  schism ;  if  he  could  not  get  mules  or  galleys, 
he  would  go  on  foot  to  meet  Benedict  XIII.  (who  had 
succeeded  Clement  at  Avignon)  and  resign  together 
with  him.  And  within  a  few  months  Christendom 
witnessed  the  still  more  odious  spectacle  of  the  two 
Popes,  both  men  of  advanced  years  and  great  piety, 
straining  every  nerve  to  avoid  each  other  and  evade 
resignation.  They  were  to  meet  at  Savona,  but,  as 
Leonardo  quaintly  says,  "whenever  there  was  question 
of  their  meeting,  one  would,  as  if  he  were  a  land  animal, 
not  approach  the  coast,  and  the  other,  as  if  he  were  an 
aquatic  animal,  would  not  leave  the  sea."  Benedict 
reached  Savona;  Gregory  could  not  be  driven  beyond 
Lucca.  The  best  that  can  be  said  for  him  is  that  he 
was  ruled  by  greedy  relatives.  At  last,  on  a  pretext 
provided  by  his  supporter  Ladislaus  of  Naples,  Gregory 
fled  back  to  Rome  and  refused  to  listen  to  any  further 
counsel  of  resignation. 

Christendom,  in  disgust,  now  called  for  a  General 
Coiincil.  France  disowned  Benedict  and,  when  he 
excommunicated  the  King,  tore  his  Bull  in  halves  and 
ordered  his  arrest.  He  fled  to  Perpignan  and  Gregory 
to  Venice,  and  the  cardinals  began  to  negotiate  with 
the  princes  for  the  holding  of  the  Council  of  Pisa. 
Cardinal  Cossa,  who  had  disdainfully  taken  down  the 
arms  of  Gregory  XII.  at  Bologna,  and  who  was  in 
league  with  Florence  against  Naples,  took  the  lead  in 
the  new  movement.  When  Gregory  excommunicated 
him,  he  burned  the  Bull  in  the  market-place.  When 
Ladislaus  of  Naples  advanced  against  Pisa,  he  united 
his  troops  to  those  of  Florence  and  scattered  the  south- 
erners. When  Benedict's  representatives  asked  for  a 
safe-conduct  through  Italy,  he  said:  "If  you  come  to 


228  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
Bologna,  with  or  without  a  safe-conduct,  I'll  burn  you." 
I  So  the  Council  met  at  Pisa,  deposed  Benedict  and  Greg- 
|ory,  and,  in  effect,  set  up  a  third  Pope,  Alexander  V. 
The  situation  being  without  precedent,  there  was  no 
canonical  basis  for  such  a  Council,  and  no  executive 
to  enforce  the  Council's  decisions.  Benedict  and 
Gregory — the  one  under  the  protection  of  Spain  and 
the  other  with  the  support  of  Naples,  Rimini,  and  part 
of  Germany — continued  to  fulminate  against  each 
other,  and  a  third  discharge  of  anathemas  only  distracted 
Christendom  the  more. 

Cardinal  Cossa  set  out  once  more  at  the  head  of  his 
troops,  and,  with  the  aid  of  Louis  of  Anjou  and  the 
Florentines,  swept  the  Neapolitan  troops  southward 
and  opened  Rome  for  Alexander.  But  that  feeble 
and  aged  Anti-Pope  never  reached  the  Lateran.  He 
died  at  Bologna  on  May  4,  1410,  and  Louis  of  Anjou 
(representing  the  French  influence)  and  the  Florentines 
urged  on  the  cardinals  the  election  of  Cossa  himself. 
At  midnight  on  May  17th,  the  expectant  crowd  at 
Bologna  was  informed  that  the  cardinals  had  come  to 
an  agreement,  and  an  hour  later  Baldassare  Cossa,  or 
John  XXIIL,  stepped  forth  in  the  scarlet  mitre  and 
spotless  robes  of  a  Vicar  of  Christ.  There  are  chroni- 
clers who  say  that  he  had  bribed  the  electors,  and 
chroniclers  who  say  that  he  had  bullied  them.  The 
first  charge  is  not  unlikely,  as  bribery  was  now  becoming 
common  enough  on  the  eve  of  or  during  a  Conclave, 
but  we  cannot  check  these  rumours.  Dietrich  von 
Nieheim  admits  that  Cossa  nominated  another  cardinal 
for  the  tiara,  and  the  Council  of  Constance  did  not 
impeach  the  regularity  of  his  election.  He  was  chosen 
because  of  his  vigour  and  military  ability.  Such  was 
the  condition  of  the  Papacy  that  none  seemed  to  care 


John  XXIII.  and  the  Great  Schism    229 

that  he  was  "a  complete  failure  and  worthless  in 
spiritual  matters." 

He  must  have  been  at  that  time  about  forty-three 
years  old:  a  tall,  spare,  soldierly-looking  man,  with 
large  nose  and  piercing  dark  grey  eyes  under  bushy 
eyebrows.  After  devoting  a  few  days  to  the  customary 
festivities,  he  set  about  the  work  of  enabling  Louis  of 
Anjou  to  displace  Ladislaus  on  the  throne  of  Naples 
and  thus  destroy  Gregory's  main  support.  It  may  have 
been  in  deference  to  the  feeling  of  some  of  the  cardinals 
that  he  first  summoned  Benedict  and  Gregory  to  resign 
and  asked  his  bitter  enemy  Ladislaus — the  man  who 
had  condemned  his  brothers — to  pay  the  arrears  of 
sixty  thousand  ducats  which  he  owed  to  the  Roman 
See.  All  three  contemptuously  refused  to  recognize 
him,  and,  as  Ladislaus  presently  destroyed  the  fleet  of 
Louis  of  Anjou  and  advanced  against  the  Papal  troops, 
the  prospect  was  uncertain.  John  feverishly  sought 
allies  and  funds.  He  conciliated  England,  where  the 
call  for  a  real  Ecumenical  Council  to  depose  the  three 
Popes  was  already  heard,  by  suppressing  an  obnoxious 
Bull  of  Boniface  IX.  and  by  other  graces,  and  he  con- 
trived— after  the  blunders  of  his  legates  had  roused 
fierce  opposition — to  get  a  good  deal  of  money  from 
France.     Spain  still  supported  Benedict. 

The  uncertain  element  was  Germany,  where,  at  the 
time,  the  outstanding  figure  was  Sigismund  of  Hungary. 
Sigismund  had  stood  aloof  from  the  Council  of  Pisa. 
For  some  years  he  had  diverted  all  money  from  the 
Papal  agents  to  his  own  pockets,  because  Boniface  had 
recognized  Ladislaus,  and  he  detested  the  French,  who 
had  had  much  to  do  with  the  Council  at  Pisa.  His 
support  was  of  material  importance  to  John,  as  owing 
to  the  death  of  Rupert  the  day  after  John's  election, 


230    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

he  became  the  chief  candidate  for  the  Empire.  To 
John's  dehght,  Sigismund  now  sent  ambassadors  to  do 
homage,  and  an  agreement  was  reached.  The  Pope  was 
to  vahdate  the  appropriation  by  Sigismund  of  church- 
moneys  and  influence  the  Electors  in  his  favour,  and 
Sigismund  would  support  John  against  Ladislaus.' 
But  there  was  still  an  element  of  danger  and  uncer- 
tainty. Sigismund  had  sworn  to  end  the  Papal  schism, 
and  he  was  known  to  be  favourable  to  the  summoning 
of  another  and  more  weighty  council.  Moreover, 
John,  who  was  a  poor  diplomatist,  made  a  serious 
blunder.  The  elected  monarch  became,  by  law  of  the 
Empire,  King  of  the  Romans  without  any  Papal  con- 
firmation; the  imperial  crown  and  title  alone  were 
given  by  the  Pope.  Yet  John,  seeking  to  magnify  his 
authority,  persisted  in  addressing  Sigismund  until  the 
anxious  days  of  the  Council  of  Constance,  as  "Elected 
to  be  King." 

I  may  tell  very  briefly  the  sequence  of  events  in 
Italy.  After  a  year  at  Bologna,  John  proceeded  to 
Rome  and  flung  his  troops  upon  the  NeapoHtans. 
They  won  the  important  battle  of  Rocca  Secca,  but, 
owing  to  the  incompetence  of  the  Papal  legate  who 
held  supreme  command,  they  failed  to  follow  up  the 
success  and  Ladislaus  recovered.  In  the  next  few 
months  John  heard  with  increasing  alarm  that  Louis 
of  Anjou  had  returned  in  despair  to  France:  that  the 
ablest  Papal  commander,  Sforza,  had  transferred  his 
services  to  Naples:  that  Malatesta  of  Rimini,  the  only 
other  supporter  of  Gregory,  was  winning  success  in 

'  We  learn  from  later  letters  of  the  Pope  that  he  worked  for  Sigismund 
in  Germany,  especially  when  a  rival  "King  of  the  Romans"  was  elected. 
See  tlie  evidence  in  Dr.  J.  Scliwerdfegcr's  Papst  Johann  XXIII.  und  die 
Wahl  Sigismunds  zum  rdmiscbcn  Konig  (1895). 


John  XXIII.  and  the  Great  Schism    231 

the  north:  and  that  the  NeapoHtans  were  marching 
against  Rome,  He  levied  taxes  on  the  churches  and 
citizens  of  Rome  until  they  became  restless.  He  petu- 
lantly had  an  effigy  of  Sforza  hanged  on  a  gallows  at 
Rome.  He  pressed  the  sale  of  indulgences  so  flagrantly, 
and  by  such  repellent  agents,  that  the  reformers  of 
Bohemia  burned  his  Bull  in  the  streets.  He  excom- 
municated Ladislaus  and  proclaimed  a  crusade  against 
him;  and  not  a  prince  in  Europe  stirred. 

Now  seriously  concerned,  John  offered  to  recognize 
Ladislaus  as  King  of  Naples  if  he  would  abandon 
Gregory,  and  that  monarch  at  once  basely  deserted  his 
Pope.  He  ordered  the  stubborn  old  man  to  quit  Gaeta, 
and  it  is  said  that  the  people  of  Gaeta,  who  had  grown 
fond  of  him,  had  to  pay  his  passage  to  his  last  refuge, 
the  lands  of  the  Lord  of  Rimini.  Ladislaus  was  made 
Gonfaloniere  of  the  Church,  and  the  Pope  promised 
him  120,000  ducats.  But  so  onerous  a  peace  could  not 
endure.  After  some  mutual  charges  in  the  spring 
of  141 3  the  Neapolitan  troops  approached  Rome.  The 
Romans  assured  John  that  they  would  eat  their  child- 
ren rather  than  surrender,  but,  when  they  saw  the 
Pope  and  cardinals  secure  their  own  position  by  cross- 
ing the  river,  they  opened  the  gates  and  admitted  the 
Neapolitans.  Their  warrior-Pope,  surrounded  by  car- 
dinals who  wept  for  the  treasures  they  had  abandoned 
in  Rome,  fled  to  the  north,  and  at  length  reached 
Florence.  Even  here  the  citizens  were  afraid  to  admit 
him.  They  assigned  him  the  bishop's  palace  outside 
the  walls,  and  from  this  lowly  centre  John  continued 
his  sale  of  benefices  and  indulgences. 

One  other  event  will  complete  the  record  of  John's 
Pontificate,  before  we  begin  the  story  of  his  imdoing. 
The  abuses  of  the  Roman  Curia  had  excited,  or  encour- 


232    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

aged,  various  hostile  movements.  There  were  Lollards 
in  England,  and  followers  of  Hus  and  Jerome  of  Prague 
in  Bohemia.  These  vague  and  unimportant  move- 
ments— from  the  Papal  point  of  view — were  left  to 
local  prelates,  but  the  growing  Christian  demand  for 
another  General  Council  was  disquieting.  The  Council 
of  Pisa  had  put  itself  above  the  Popes,  and  grave 
doctors  at  many  universities  argued  that  a  council 
must  effect  that  reform  of  the  Church  which  Popes 
refused  to  effect.  Probably  John  XXIII.  did  not 
appreciate  the  full  significance  of  this  Conciliar  move- 
ment, but  he  did  see  that  there  was  grave  danger  that 
a  Council  would  depose  him,  as  well  as  Benedict  and 
Gregory,  unless  he  controlled  it.  He,  therefore,  in 
141 2,  announced  that  a  General  Council  would  be  held 
at  Rome,  and  he  reminded  prelates  that  the  Council 
of  Pisa  had  enjoined  this.  But  only  a  few  French  and 
Italian  prelates  responded  to  his  summons,  and  a  strange 
accident  increased  his  uneasiness.  One  day,  when  all 
were  assembled  in  St.  Peter's,  a  screech  owl  issued 
from  a  dark  corner  and  perched  opposite  the  Pope.  John 
reddened  and  perspired,  as  he  gazed  into  the  uncanny 
eyes  of  the  bird,  and  at  last  he  left  his  seat  and  broke 
up  the  sitting.  It  was  there  again  at  the  next  sitting, 
and  was  killed  only  after  a  great  commotion.  A  strange 
form  for  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  mockers  said;  a  dreadful 
omen  for  the  Pope,  said  others.  Reforms  were  pro- 
mised, and  the  works  of  Wyclif  were  condemned,  but 
the  Council  was  too  small  to  have  effect  and  it  was 
prorogued  until  December  i,  141 3. 

Meantime  John  was  driven  to  the  north,  and  from 
Florence  he  appealed  to  Sigismund.  Many  eyes  were 
turned  to  Sigismund  from  various  parts  of  Europe,  and 
that  singular  monarch  took  quite  seriously  the  high 


John  XXIII.  and  the  Great  Schism    233 

function  which  was  thrust  upon  him  of  saving  and 
reforming  Christendom.  He  was  a  man  of  consider- 
able ability,  though  it  was  apt  to  take  the  form  of 
cunning  rather  than  statesmanship,  but  his  narrow 
cupidity,  his  notorious  license  in  morals,  and  his  general 
indifference  to  principle  made  him  an  incongruous 
instrument  for  the  reform  of  the  Church.  He  at  once 
informed  John  that  the  state  of  the  Church  was  to  be 
submitted  to  a  General  Council,  and  a  struggle  ensued 
between  the  two  as  to  whether  it  should  be  held  south 
or  north  of  the  Alps.  We  have  the  reliable  assurance 
of  Leonardo,  John's  secretary  at  the  time,  that  the  Pope 
proposed  to  send  two  cardinals  with  full  powers  to 
treat,  which  they  were  to  show  to  Sigismund,  and  with 
secret  instructions  restricting  them.  John  told  this 
design,  with  great  complacency,  to  his  secretary,^ 
though  he  did  not  carry  it  out.  The  Papal  legates 
met  Sigismund  at  Como  in  the  autumn  and  were 
pleased  to  think  that  they  made  an  impression  on  him, 
but  John  was  dismayed  to  learn  that,  on  October  30th, 
the  King  of  the  Romans  issued  a  proclamation  to  the 
effect  that  a  General  Council  would  be  held,  under  his 
presidency,  at  Constance,  on  All  Saints'  Day,  1414. 

John  is  described  as  stricken  with  fear  and  grief  at 
the  prospect  of  a  council  outside  Italy,  but  Sigismund 
was  inflexible.  They  spent  two  months  together  at  Pia- 
cenza  and  Lodi,  and  the  Pope  must  have  penetrated  the 
King's  design.  He  already  leaned  to  the  plan  of  deposing 
the  three  Popes  and  electing  another.  John  was  com- 
pelled, on  December  9th,  to  issue  a  Bull  convoking  the 
Coimcil,  and  he  then  went  to  Bologna  to  await  the 
attack  of  the  Neapolitans.  There,  about  the  middle 
of  August,  he  received  the  welcome  news  that  Ladislaus 

'  Commentarii,  p.  928. 


234    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

had  been  poisoned  by  the  father  of  one  of  his  mistresses. 
He  proposed  to  break  faith  with  Sigismund  and  dis- 
avow the  Council,  but  the  cardinals  restrained  him  from 
taking  this  wild  step,  and  on  October  ist  he  set  out  for 
the  north,  sadly,  with  a  troop  of  six  hundred  horse. 
He  had  for  some  time  wavered  between  gloomy  appre- 
hensions of  a  mysterious  fate  which  pursued  him  and 
buoyant  confidence  in  his  wealth  and  power. 

The  last  words  of  his  friends  at  Bologna  must  have 
recurred  to  him  again  and  again  as  he  passed  up  the 
autumnal  valley  of  the  Adige  and  entered  the  snows  of 
the  Tirol.  He  would  not  return  a  Pope,  they  said. 
In  the  Arlberg  Pass  his  carriage  was  overturned,  and 
he  exclaimed,  as  he  lay  in  the  snow:  "Here  I  lie,  in  the 
name  of  the  devil,  and  I  would  have  done  much  better 
to  stop  at  Bologna."  He  remained  for  some  days  at 
Meran  with  Duke  Friedrich,  whom  he  made  captain- 
general  of  the  Papal  troops,  with  a  salary  of  six  thousand 
ducats  a  year.  It  was  well  to  make  a  friend  of  this 
powerful  and  discontented  vassal  of  Sigismund.  At 
last,  on  October  27th,  his  troops  turned  the  crest  of 
the  last  low  hills  before  Constance,  and  he  gazed  down 
on  the  hollow  between  the  guardian  mountains.  "A 
trap  for  foxes,"  he  is  said  to  have  muttered.  On  the 
following  day  he  rode  into  Constance,  on  his  richly 
harnessed  white  horse,  under  a  canopy  of  cloth  of  gold, 
and  occupied  the  episcopal  palace. 

For  three  weeks  the  snowy  roads  down  the  mountain- 
sides from  all  directions  discharged  gay  streams  of 
princes  and  prelates,  bishops  and  abbots,  theologians 
and  lawyers,  thieves  and  prostitutes,  bankers  and  acro- 
bats, upon  the  sleepy  old  town,  until  it  seemed  to  burst 
with  a  ravening  multitude.  Something  between  fifty 
and  a  hundred  thousand  visitors  had  to  be  housed  and 


John  XXIII.  and  the  Great  Schism    235 

entertained,  and  it  is  reported  by  grave  observers  that 
more  than  a  thousand  prostitutes  flocked  to  Constance 
in  the  days  of  the  Council.'  There  were,  in  the  course 
of  time,  twenty-nine  cardinals,  thirty- three  archbishops, 
a  hundred  and  fifty  bishops,  a  hundred  and  thirty- 
four  abbots,  and  a  hundred  doctors  of  law  and  divinity : 
among  the  latter  a  certain  pale  and  thin  man,  Master 
John  Hus,  who  did  not  suspect  that  he  had  come  to 
be  tried  on  a  capital  charge.  But  the  Emperor  was 
late — he  was  crowned  at  Aachen  on  November  8th — 
so  the  first  sitting  of  the  Council,  on  November  5th, 
was  adjourned  to  the  i6th,  and  then  until  the  new  year. 
Meantime  the  thousands  of  entertainers  did  their  duty, 
and  the  city  rang  day  and  night  with  revelry,  and  a 
crowd  speaking  thirty  different  languages  filled  the 
streets  and  overflowed  on  to  the  roofs  and  into  the 
sheds  and  even  the  empty  tubs  of  Constance. 

On  Christmas  morning,  two  hours  after  midnight. 
Emperor  Sigismund  made  a  stately  entrance  from  the 
Lake  and  a  vast  crowd  attended  John's  midnight  mass. 
Then  the  struggle  began.  John's  money  circulated 
freely,  yet  the  view  that  he  must  be  deposed  with  the 
other  two  was  gaining  ground.  He  was  gouty  and  his 
vigour  was  prematurely  undermined,  but  he  fought  for 
his  tiara.  Envoys  came  to  represent  Benedict  and 
Gregory,  and  he  objected  to  their  being  received  with 


'  The  clergy  had,  of  course,  large  troops  of  lay  followers,  and  numbers 
of  lay  doctors  attended  the  Council,  but  we  have  seen  often  enough  the 
moral  state  of  the  clergy  themselves  in  the  Ivliddlc  Ages.  A  picturesque 
summary  of  the  chroniclers  is  given  by  K.iito,  Pope  John  the  Twetity-third 
and  Master  John  Hus  of  Bohemia.  See  also  H.  Blumenthal's  Die 
Vorgeschichle  des  Constan7.er  Concils  (1897)  and,  for  the  proceedings, 
H.  Finke's  Acta  Concilii  Conslantiensis  (1896),  and  H.  von  der  Hardt's 
Magnum  CEcumenicum  Constantietise  Concilium  (1696,  etc.). 


236    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

honour:  he  was  overruled.  He  held  that  none  less  in 
rank  than  a  bishop  or  abbot  should  vote,  and  that  the 
voting  should  be  by  heads,  not  nations;  and  again  he 
was  overruled,  and  his  Italian  prelates  would  be  out- 
voted. Then  some  anonymous  Italian  put  into  circu- 
lation a  memoir  on  his  crimes  and  vices,  and  he  was 
greatly  alarmed.  To  avoid  scandal,  however, — for 
John  admitted  some  of  the  accusations, — it  was  sup- 
pressed, but  it  was  decided  that  he  must  abdicate. 
After  some  evasive  correspondence,  he  promised  to 
abdicate  "if  and  when  Peter  de  Luna  and  Angelo  Cora- 
rio"  did  the  same,  and  on  March  7th  he  was  compelled 
to  embody  the  formula  in  a  Bull.  He  became  ill  and 
desperate,  and  there  were  rumours  that  he  was  about 
to  fly.  Sigismund  put  guards  at  all  the  gates,  but 
refused  to  imprison  him  as  the  English,  headed  by  the 
fiery  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  demanded. 

On  March  20th,  Duke  Friedrich  of  Tirol  drew  all 
Constance  to  a  grand  tournament  outside  the  city,  and 
in  the  midst  of  it  he  was  noticed  to  receive  a  message 
and  leave  the  ground.  Presently  it  was  learned  that 
the  Pope,  disguised  as  a  groom,  had  slipped  out  of  the 
gate  on  a  poor  horse,  with  two  companions,  and  Fried- 
rich  had  joined  them  at  Schaffhausen.  Sigismund 
sternly  forbade  the  dissolution  of  the  Council,  laid  a 
heavy  punishment  on  his  vassal,  and  sent  some  of  the 
cardinals  to  see  John.  The  Pope  declared  that  he  had 
left  solely  on  account  of  his  illness;  he  would  abdicate 
and  not  interfere  with  the  Council,  but  the  cardinals 
must  join  him  at  once  or  be  excommunicated.  The 
Council,  now  led  by  the  great  Gerson  and  other  strong 
French  doctors,  ignored  the  Pope,  and  declared  that  it 
had,  direct  from  Christ,  a  power  to  which  Popes  must 
bow.     As  Sigismund 's  troops  were  after  them,  John 


John  XXIII.  and  the  Great  Schism    2:^^-] 

and  Friedrich  fled  farther,  and  at  last  John  quarrelled 
with  his  supporter  and  fled  in  disguise  across  the  Black 
Forest  to  Freiburg.  He  arrived  within  reach  of  Bur- 
gundy, whose  Duke  was  friendly,  and  he  demanded 
better  terms.  He  would  resign  on  condition  that  he  was 
appointed  Perpetual  Legate  for  the  whole  of  Italy, 
with  a  pension  of  30,000  florins;  the  alternative  in  his 
mind  seems  to  have  been  a  court  at  Avignon  imder  the 
protection  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy. 

The  end  of  his  adventures  is  well  known.  The 
burghers  of  Freiburg  refused  to  protect  him  and  he  fled 
to  Breisar,  where  the  envoys  of  the  Council  came  to 
press  for  his  resignation.  He  put  on  his  rough  disguise 
once  more,  and  made  off  with  a  troop  of  Austrian  cav- 
alry, but  Friedrich,  to  obtain  a  mitigation  of  his  own 
sentence,  betrayed  him.  For  several  days  he  miserably 
resisted  the  pressure  of  the  envoys,  weeping  and  wailing 
piteously,  and  on  May  2d  the  Council  summoned  him 
to  appear  before  it  within  nine  days  to  answer  charges 
of  heresy,  schism,  simony,  and  immorality.  On  the 
seventh  day  a  troop  of  horse  came  for  him,  but  he  was 
ill  and  irresolute.  On  May  14th  the  patience  of  the 
Council  was  exhausted;  it  suspended  him  from  office 
and  ordered  the  public  trial  of  the  charges  which  had 
already  been  examined  and  on  which  a  mass  of  evidence 
had  been  taken.  Two  days  later  the  great  assembly  of 
prelates  and  doctors  drew  up  the  appalling  indictment, 
in  seventy-two  articles,  of  Baldassare  Cossa.  In  the 
main  the  charges  referred  to  those  acts  of  simony,  brib- 
ery, corruption,  and  tyranny  which  I  have  recounted, 
but  it  should  be  added  that  he  was  described  as  "ad- 
dicted to  the  flesh,  the  dregs  of  vice,  a  mirror  of  infamy  " 
(art.  6),  and  "guilty  of  poisoning,  murder,  and  persis- 
tent addiction   to  vices  of   the  flesh"  (art  29).     The 


2s8    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

worst  charges  of  Dietrich  were  solemnly  endorsed  by 
the  gravest  lawyers  and  priests  of  Europe. 

John  lay,  prostrate  and  in  tears,  in  an  inn  at  Rudolph- 
zell.  He  wished  to  submit  a  defence,  but  a  few  friendly 
cardinals  advised  him  to  submit,  and  when,  on  May 
26th,  he  heard  that  the  Council  had  endorsed  the  in- 
dictment, he  made  no  further  resistance.  He  was  de- 
posed on  the  29th  and  accepted  the  sentence  with  words 
of  humility  and  repentance,  A  few  days  later  the 
wretched  man  was  consigned  to  the  castle  of  Gott- 
lieben,  and  then  to  a  castle  at  Mannheim.  There  was, 
in  the  following  year,  a  futile  attempt  to  rescue  him, 
and  he  was  confined  in  the  castle  of  Heidelberg,  where 
he  remained  three  years,  with  a  cook  and  two  chaplains 
of  his  once  magnificent  establishment,  composing  verses 
on  the  vanity  of  earthly  things.  The  hollow  words  of 
his  consecration-ceremony.  Sic  transit  gloria  mundi, 
had  for  him  assumed  a  terrible  reality. 

How  Gregory  resigned,  and  Benedict  retired  with  his 
tawdry  court  to  a  rocky  fortress  of  his,  and  the  Council 
burned  John  Hus  and  appointed  a  new  Pope,  may  be 
read  in  history.^  Martin  left  Cossa  in  Heidelberg, 
but  in  the  spring  of  14 19  his  keeper  was  heavily  bribed 
and  he  was  allowed  to  escape  to  Italy.  It  must  have 
moved  many  when,  as  Martin  officiated  at  the  altar 
in  Florence  cathedral,  the  familiar  figure  of  Baldassare 
Cossa  broke  from  the  throng  and  knelt  humbly  at  his 
feet.  He  was  restored  to  the  rank  of  cardinal,  and, 
apart   from  a  foolish  attempt,  a  few  months  later,  to 

'  I  have  not  dwelt  on  Hus,  as  the  Pope  had  Httlc  to  do  with  him.  For 
some  time,  thinking  to  please  the  Emperor,  John  protected  Hus  from 
his  rabid  opponents.  The  shameful  ensnarement  of  Hus  seems  to 
have  been  done  without  John's  approval,  and  he  was  deposed  before 
the  trial  of  Hus  began. 


John  XXIII.  and  the  Great  Schism    239 

form  a  Lombard  league  against  the  Emperor,  he  lived 
peacefully  in  the  house  of  Cosmo  de'  Medici  until  his 
death  in  December  (14 19).  He  was  buried  with  pomp 
by  the  Republic,  and  the  fine  monument  which  Cosmo 
raised  in  the  Baptistery  shows  that  some  appreciable 
qualities  must  have  been  united  with  his  imdisputed 
vices. 


CHAPTER  XII 

ALEXANDER  VI.,  THE  BORGIA-POPE 

THREE  grave  issues  had  been  laid  before  the  Council 
of  Constance:  the  repression  of  heresy,  the  end- 
ing of  the  Schism,  and  the  reform  of  the  Church  "in 
head  and  members."  In  the  third  year  of  their  labours 
the  prelates  and  doctors  put  an  end  to  the  Schism  and 
elected  Martin  V.;  and  the  new  Pope  soon  put  an  end 
to  the  Council  before  it  could  reform  the  Church. 
Martin  was  a  Colonna  of  high  ideals  and  considerable 
abiHty;  but  he  was  not  well  disposed  to  this  democratic 
method  of  reform  by  Council,  nor  was  he  strong  enough 
to  sacrifice  Papal  revenue  by  suppressing  the  worst 
disorder,  the  Papal  fiscal  system.  He  returned  to 
Rome,  and  the  task  of  restoring  the  city  and  the  Papal 
estates  demanded  such  resources  that  he  dare  not 
abandon  the  corrupt  practices  of  the  Curia. 

Two  worthy  and  able  Pontiffs  followed  Martin,  and 
equally  failed  to  bring  about  a  reform.  Eugenius  IV., 
an  austere,  though  harsh  and  autocratic,  Venetian, 
found  that  his  attempts  to  recover  Papal  territory  and 
curb  the  Conciliar  party  would  not  permit  him  to  re- 
form the  financial  system.  The  reformers  forced  on 
him  the  Council  of  Basle  in  143 1,  but  its  renewal  of 
the  Schism  and  creation  of  a  last  Anti-Pope,  when  he 
resisted  its  proposals,  discredited  the  Conciliar  move- 

240 


Alexander  VL,  the  Borgia- Pope       241 

ment.  Reform  must  come  from  without:  Popes  and 
cardinals  could  not  effect  it,  and  in  the  prevailing 
creed  there  was  no  canonical  basis  for  the  action  of 
a  Council  in  defiance  of  them.  Nicholas  V.,  a  quiet 
man  of  letters,  crowned  the  financial  and  political 
work  of  his  two  predecessors  with  a  great  artistic 
restoration.  He  left  politics  to  ^neas  Sylvius  and 
opened  the  gates  of  Rome  to  the  fairer  form  of  the 
Renaissance.  Greek  artists  and  scholars  were  now 
pouring  into  Italy — Constantinople  fell  to  the  Turks 
during  this  Pontificate  (1453)  —  and  fostering  the 
growth  of  the  Humanist  movement.  Rome  began 
to  assume  its  rich  mantle  of  mediaeval  art,  and  the 
Papacy  seemed  to  smile  once  more  on  a  docile  and 
prosperous  Christendom. 

But  the  restoration  had  been  accomplished  by  an 
evasion  of  reform,  and  the  new  culture  was  sharpening 
the  pens  of  critics.  One  of  these  inquisitive  scholars, 
Lorenzo  Valla,  was  actually  declaring  that  the  "Dona- 
tion of  Constantine"  was  a  forgery.  Many  denounced, 
in  fiery  prose  or  with  the  cold  cynicism  of  the  epigram, 
the  luxury  and  vice  of  the  higher  clergy.  Heresy 
hardened  in  Bohemia,  and,  among  the  stricter  ranks  of 
the  faithful,  men  like  Nicholas  of  Cusa,  John  Capis- 
trano,  and  Savonarola  were  raising  ideals  which,  if  they 
rebuked  the  laity,  far  more  solemnly  rebuked  the  clergy. 
And  just  at  this  critical  period  the  Papacy  entered 
upon  a  development  which  ended  in  the  enthronement 
of  Alexander  VI.,  Julius  II.,  and  Leo  X.;  the  Reforma- 
tion inevitably  followed. 

At  the  death  of  Nicholas  V.,  the  Orsini  and  Colonna 

cardinals  came  to  a  deadlock  in  their  struggle  for  the 

Papacy,  and  a  neutral  and  innocuous  alternative  was 

sought  in  Alfonso  Borgia  (or,  in  Spanish  style,  Borja),  a 

16 


242    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Spanish  canonist  of  some  scholarly  distinction.  Calixtus 
III,,  as  he  named  himself,  was  a  gouty  valetudina- 
rian who  lay  abed  most  of  the  day  in  pious  conversa- 
tion with  friars.  He  very  properly  disdained  the  new 
art  and  culture,  and  saved  the  Papal  funds  to  meet  the 
advancing  Turks.  He  had,  however,  one  weakness, 
which  was  destined  to  prove  very  costly  to  the  Papacy. 
There  was  a  tradition  of  nepotism  at  Rome,  and  Calix- 
tus had  nephews.  While  he  was  Bishop  of  Valencia, 
his  sister  Isabella  had  come  to  him  from  Xativa,  their 
native  place,  with  her  two  sons,  Pedro  Luis  and  Rodrigo. 
When,  in  1455,  he  became  Pope,  he  sent  Rodrigo  to 
study  at  Bologna  and  enriched  him  with  benefices. 
Pedro  Luis  was  reserved  for  a  lay  career,  and  Juan 
Luis  Mila,  son  of  another  sister,  was  sent  with  Rodrigo 
to  Bologna. 

At  this  time  Rodrigo  Borgia  was  in  his  twenty-fifth 
or  twenty-sixth  year:  an  exceptionally  handsome  young 
Spaniard,  with  the  most  charming  Spanish  manners, 
and  with  rich  sensuous  lips  and  an  eye  for  maidens 
which  escaped  his  uncle's  notice.  He  and  his  cousin 
were,  within  a  year,  made  cardinals.  In  December 
(1456)  he  was  appointed  legate  for  the  March  of  An- 
cona,  and  in  the  following  IMay  he  was,  in  spite  of  the 
murmurs  of  the  cardinals,  promoted  to  the  highest  and 
most  lucrative  office  at  the  Court,  the  Vice-Chancellor- 
ship. His  elder  brother  became  Duke  of  Spoleto, 
Gonfaloniere  of  the  Papal  army,  and  (in  1457)  Prefect 
of  Rome.  Other  needy  Spaniards  came  over  the  sea 
in  droves,  and  the  disgusted  Romans  were  soon  ousted 
from  the  best  positions.  In  1458,  however,  Calixtus 
fell  ill,  and  was  reported  to  be  dead;  and  the  Romans 
chased  the  "Catalans"  out  of  the  city.  Rodrigo  at 
first  retired  with  his  more  hated  brother,  but  he  cour- 


Alexander  VL,  the  Borgia- Pope       243 

ageously  returned  on  August  6th,  just  in  time  to  witness 
the  actual  death  of  his  uncle. 

^neas  Sylvius  mounted  the  throne,  under  the  name 
of  Pius  II.,  but  the  Humanists  looked  in  vain  for  favour 
to  that  genial  diplomatist,  traveller,  and  litterateur. 
He  had  reached  a  gouty  and  repentant  age,  and  his 
one  pre-occupation  was  to  stir  a  lethargic  Christendom 
to  a  crusade  against  the  Turks.  Cardinal  Rodrigo 
had  been  useful  to  him,  reserving  a  vacant  benefice 
for  him  now  and  again,  so  he  kept  his  place  and  contin- 
ued to  win  for  himself  wealthy  bishoprics  and  abbeys. 
For  a  moment,  in  1460,  Rodrigo  trembled.  Pius  had 
sent  him  to  direct  the  building  of  a  cathedral  at  Siena, 
and  the  Pope  startled  his  Vice- Chancellor  with  a  stern 
letter.  Rodrigo  and  another  cardinal,  the  Pope  heard, 
had  entertained  a  number  of  very  frivolous  young 
ladies  for  five  hours  in  a  private  garden.  They  had 
excluded  the  parents  of  these  girls,  and  there  had  been 
"dances  of  the  most  licentious  character"  and  other 
things  which  "modesty  forbids  to  recount."  It  was 
the  talk  of  the  town.'     From  the  kind  of  dances  and 


'  The  letter  is  given  in  Raynaldus,  Annates  Ecdesiastici,  year  1460, 
n.  31,  and  is  translated  in  Bishop  JMathew's  Life  and  Times  of  Rodrigo 
Borgia  (1912),  p.  35.  It  is  misrepresented  in  Baron  Corvo's  Chronicles 
of  the  House  of  Borgia  (1901,  p.  64).  The  chief  apologist  for  Alexander, 
A.  Leonetti  {Papa  Alessandro  VI.,  1880),  made  the  easy  suggestion  that 
the  letter  was  a  forgery,  but  Cardinal  Hergenroether  found  the  original 
in  the  Vatican  archives.  See  the  able  essay  by  Comte  H.  de  L'Epinois 
(another  Catholic  writer)  in  the  Revue  des  Questions  Historiques 
(April  I,  1 881),  p.  367.  He  shows,  by  the  use  of  original  documents, 
that  the  apologetic  efforts  of  GUivier,  Leonetti,  and  a  few  others,  are 
futile.  Of  these  efforts  the  leading  Catholic  historian  of  the  Papacy, 
Dr.  L.  Pastor,  observes:  "In  the  face  of  such  a  perversion  of  the  truth, 
it  is  the  duty  of  the  historian  to  show  that  the  evidence  against  Rodrigo 
is  so  strong  as  to  render  it  impossible  to  restore  his  reputation"  {The 
History  of  the  Popes,  ii.,  542). 


244    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

women  which  Alexander  had  in  the  Vatican  long  after- 
wards we  can  imagine  the  things  which  startled  Siena. 
Rodrigo  urged  that  there  had  been  exaggeration,  but 
the  Pope,  while  admitting  the  possibility  of  this,  again 
sternly  bade  him  mind  his  behaviour. 

The  long  discussion  of  the  morals  of  Alexander  VI. 
has,  in  fact,  now  ended  in  entire  agreement  that  by  the 
year  1460,  at  least,  he  was  openly  immoral.  The  Papal 
and  other  documents  relating  to  his  children — at  least 
six  in  number — which  have  been  found  in  the  Vatican 
archives  and  in  the  private  archives  of  the  Duke  of 
Ossuna  show  an  extraordinary  laxity  at  Rome.  There 
is  a  Bull  of  Sixtus  IV.,  dated  November  5,  1481,  le- 
gitimizing the  birth  of  Pedro  Luis  Borgia,  "son  of  a 
cardinal-deacon  and  an  unmarried  woman";  he  is 
described  as  "a  young  man,"  and  was  probably  born 
about  1460.  There  is  the  marriage  contract  of  Girolama 
Borgia,  dated  1482,  which  refers  to  the  "paternal  love" 
of  the  Vice-Chancellor;  she  must  then  have  been  at 
least  thirteen  years  old.  There  is  a  document,  dated 
October  i,  1480,  dispensing  from  the  bar  of  illegitimacy 
Cassar  Borgia,  "son  of  a  cardinal-bishop  and  a  married 
woman";  and  he  is  described  as  in  his  sixth  year,  or 
born  about  1475.  There  is  a  deed  of  gift  of  Rodrigo 
to  Juan  Borgia,  "his  carnal  son,"  whose  birth  must  fall 
either  in  1474  or  1476.  There  are  documents  referring 
to  the  celebrated  Lucrezia,  whose  birth  is  generally  put 
in  1478,  and  to  Jofre  Borgia,  who  was  born  about  1480; 
and  there  are  documents  from  which  we  have — as  we 
shall  see  later — the  gravest  reason  to  conclude  that  the 
Pope  had  a  son  in  1497  or  1498,  when  he  approached 
his  seventieth  year.  Except  that  a  few  hesitate,  in 
face  of  the  strongest  evidence,  to  admit  the  last  child, 
no  serious  historian  of  any  school  now  questions  these 


Alexander  VL,  the  Borgia- Pope       245 

facts,  and  the  evidence  need  not  be  examined  in 
detail.  ^ 

At  least  four  of  these  children  were  born  of  Vannozza 
(or  Giovannozza)  dei  Catanei,  a  Roman  lady  who  was 
the  Cardinal's  mistress  from  about  1460  to  i486.  The 
story  that  she  was  an  orphan  entrusted  to  his  care  and 
seduced  by  him  is  not  reliable.  Nothing  is  confidently 
known  about  her  early  years,  but  her  epitaph  has  been 
discovered,  and  it  honours  her,  not  only  for  her  "signal 
probity  and  great  piety,"  but  because  she  was  the 
mother  of  Caesar,  Juan,  Jofre,  and  Lucrezia  Borgia. 
Pedro  Luis  and  Girolama  may  have  been  born  of  an 
earlier  mistress,  but  it  is  not  at  all  certain.  Vannozza, 
who  married  three  times,  is  constantly  mentioned,  by 
the  ambassadors,  as  Borgia's  mistress.  She  had  a 
handsome  mansion  near  the  Cardinal's  palace  and  the 
Vatican,  and  she  entertained  there  and  in  her  country 
house  long  after  Borgia  became  Pope  and  replaced  her 
by  a  younger  mistress. 

These  monuments  of  parentage  are  almost  the  only 

'  The  decisive  documents,  from  the  archives  of  the  Duke  of  Ossuna, 
are  pubHshed  by  Thuasne  in  his  edition  of  Burchard's  Diarhim  (Appen- 
dix to  vol.  iii.).  Dr.  Pastor  (ii.,  453)  has  a  good  summary  of  them,  and 
there  is  other  evidence  in  the  Lucrezia  Borgia  of  Gregorovius.  See 
also  the  essay  of  Comte  H.  de  L'Epinois,  quoted  above,  and  "Don 
Rodrigo  de  Borja  und  seine  Sohne,  "by  C.  R.  von  Hofier,  in  the  Denk- 
schriften  der  Kaiserlichen  Akademie  der  Wissenschaften,  Bd.  73.  The 
chief  original  authorities  are  J.  Burchard  {Diarium,  edited  by  Thuasne, 
3  vols.,  1884)  and  S.  Infessura  {Diario,  in  Muratori,  iii.),  and  the  de- 
spatches of  the  Italian  ambassadors  at  Rome.  Burchard  and  Infessura 
are  gossipy  and  hostile,  and  must  be  controlled.  Recent  works  on  the 
Borgias  are  too  apt  to  reproduce  lightly  the  romantic  statements  of 
later  Italian  historians  or  contemporary  Neapolitan  enemies.  The 
work  of  Bishop  Mathew,  to  which  I  have  referred,  is  less  judicious  than 
his  volume  on  Hildebrand.  Bishop  Creighton's  History  of  the  Papacy 
is  rather  too  indulgent  to  Alexander  and  needs  supplementing  by  the 
documents  in  Pastor  and  Thuasne. 


246    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

evidences  of  the  existence  of  Cardinal  Borgia  under 
Pius  II.  and  Paul  II.  In  1471  a  pious  and  learned 
Franciscan  friar,  Sixtus  IV.,  assumed  the  tiara,  and  it 
is  an  indication  of  the  strange  temper  of  the  times 
that  under  such  a  man  the  Papal  Court  became  more 
corrupt  than  ever.'  Sixtus  vigorously  restored  the 
secular  rule  of  the  Papacy  and  encouraged  the  ar- 
tistic and  cultural  development,  but  his  nepotism 
was  shameless  and  profoundly  harmful.  One  of  the 
nephews  whom  he  drew  from  the  obscurity  of  a 
Franciscan  monastery  and  made  a  prince  of  the 
Church  was  Pietro  Riario,  who  spent  260,000  ducats,^ 
and  within  two  years  of  his  promotion  wore  out  his 
life  in  the  most  flagrant  dissipation.  His  immense 
palace,  with  its  magnificent  treasures,  its  five  hundred 
servants  in  scarlet  silk,  and  its  prodigious  banquets, 
was  the  home  of  every  species  of  vice;  and  it  is  said 
that  his  chief  mistress,  Tiresia,  flaunted  eight  hundred 
ducats'  worth  of  pearls  on  her  embroidered  slippers. 
Another  nephew  was  the  sterner,  though  also  immoral, 
Cardinal  Giuliano  della  Rovere — also  brought  from  a 
monastery — whom  we  shall  know  as  Julius  II.  Other 
cardinals  promoted  by  the  friar-Pope  were  equally 
notorious  for  their  indulgence  and  for  the  unscrupulous 
quest  of  money  to  sustain  it. 

'  M.  Brosch,  the  scholarly  author  of  a  study  of  Julius  II.  (Papst  Julius 
II.,  1878),  observes  that  research  in  the  Rovere  archives  has  discovered 
no  trace  of  the  Paolo  Riario  who  is  assigned  as  the  father  of  Sixtus's 
nephews,  and  concludes  that  they  were  his  natural  sons.  But  Paolo 
Riario  is  expressly  mentioned  in  the  funeral  oration  on  Cardinal  Pietro 
Riario,  and  is  more  fully  described  in  Leone  Cobelli's  Cronache  Forlivesi. 
There  is  no  sound  reason  to  impeach  the  chastity  of  this  Pope,  as  even 
Creighton  does. 

'  The  gold  ducat  is  estimated  at  about  ten  shillings  of  English  money, 
but  probably  this  docs  not  express  its  full  purchasing  power. 


Alexander  VI.,  the  Borgia-Pope       247 

From  the  Bulls  of  Sixtus  which  I  have  quoted,  it  is 
clear  that  he  was  acquainted  with  the  vices  of  Borgia, 
yet  he  sent  him  as  legate  to  Spain,  to  excite  interest 
in  the  crusade,  in  the  spring  of  1472.  In  spite  of  some 
compHments,  it  does  not  appear  that  Borgia  did  more 
than  impress  his  countrymen  with  his  display  and  gal- 
lantry, and  he  returned  toward  the  close  of  1473  and 
built  one  of  the  most  stately  palaces  in  the  rich  quarter 
which  was  now  rising  round  the  Vatican,  When  Sixtus 
died,  in  1484,  he  made  a  resolute  effort  to  get  the  tiara. 
The  dispatches  of  the  ambassadors  who  now  represented 
the  northern  States  at  the  Vatican  afford  us  a  valuable 
means  of  checking  the  chroniclers,  and  they  put  it 
beyond  question  that  Borgia  and  Giuliano  della  Rovere 
entered  upon  a  corrupt  rivalry  for  the  Papacy.  Giuli- 
ano was  now  a  tall,  serious-looking  man  of  forty:  re- 
served in  speech  and  brusque  in  manners,  a  good  soldier 
and  most  ambitious  courtier.  Although  he  was  known 
to  have  children,  he  kept  a  comparatively  sober  house- 
hold and  reserved  his  wealth  for  special  occasions  of 
display  and  for  bribery.  Borgia  was  his  senior  by 
thirteen  years,  but  he  had  the  buoyancy,  gaiety,  and 
sensuality  of  a  young  man.  He,  too,  kept  a  moderate 
table  and  gambled  little,  but  his  amours  were  notorious 
and  one  could  not  please  him  better  than  by  providing 
a  ballet  of  handsome  women.  To  these  wealthy  "up- 
starts" the  haughty  Orsini  and  Colonna  were  bitterly 
opposed,  and  the  announcement  of  the  death  of  Sixtus 
let  loose  a  flood  of  passion.  The  splendid  mansion  of 
Count  Riario,  another  nephew  of  the  late  Pope,  was 
sacked,  the  Orsini  entrenched  themselves  on  Monte 
Giordano,  and  the  other  cardinals  filled  their  halls 
with  armed  men. 

In  the  Conclave  it  was  soon  apparent  that  neither 


248    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Rodrigo  nor  Giuliano  could  command  the  necessary 
two  thirds  of  the  votes,  and  they  agreed  to  adopt 
Cardinal  Cibo,  a  Genoese  noble  who  had  outburned  the 
passions  of  youth  before  he  entered  the  service  of  the 
Church.  During  the  night  of  August  28-29,  when 
the  supporters  of  Cardinal  Barbo  (who  seemed  to  be 
sure  of  election)  had  confidently  retired  to  their  cells, 
Rodrigo  and  Giuliano,  by  intrigue  and  bribery,  secured 
a  majority  for  Cibo.'  He  became  Innocent  VIII.  the 
next  morning,  and  during  the  eight  years  of  his  amiable 
and  futile  Pontificate  the  College  of  Cardinals  steadily 
sank.  Innocent's  natural  son  was  drawn  from  his 
decent  obscurity  and  made  one  of  the  richest  and  fastest 
nobles  of  Rome;  and  women  were  hardly  safe  even  in 
their  own  homes  when  Franceschetto  Cibo  roamed  the 
streets  at  night,  with  his  cutthroats,  in  one  of  his  wine- 
fiushed  moods.  He  took  so  ardently  to  the  new  cardi- 
nalitial  pastime  of  gambling  that  in  one  night  he  lost 
100,000  ducats  to  Cardinal  Riario.  Cardinal  la  Balue 
left  at  his  death  a  fortune  of  100,000  ducats.  Cardinal 
Ascanio  Sforza,  brother  of  the  ruler  of  Milan,  was  the 
leading  sportsman  of  Roman  society.  Cardinal  Lorenzo 
Cibo  owed  his  red  hat  to  the  fortunate  circumstance 
that  he  was  an  illegitimate  son  of  the  Pope's  brother. 
Cardinal  Giovanni  de'  Medici,  who  was  one  day  to  be 
Leo  X.,  had  received  the  tonsure  in  his  eighth  year  and 
the  title  of  cardinal  in  his  fourteenth.  Cardinals 
Savelli,  Sclafenati,  and  Sanseverino  were  members  of 
the  fast  and  luxurious  group.  Each  cardinal  main- 
tained a  large  palace,  with  hundreds  of  gay-liveried 
servants  and  ready  swordsmen,  and  the  wealthier  seem 
to  have  studied  with  care  the  pages  in  which  Macrobius 
describes  the  exquisite  or  colossal  banquets  of  the  older 

'  See  the  dispatches  quoted  in  Thuasnc's  Burchard,  vol.  ii. 


Alexander  VI.,  the  Borgia- Pope       249 

pagans.  Each — apart  from  the  minority  of  grave  and 
virtuous  cardinals — had  his  faction  in  the  city,  and,  as 
carnival  time  approached,  they  were  engrossed  for 
weeks  in  the  preparation  of  the  superb  cars  and  brilliant 
troops  of  horse  by  which  each  sought  to  prove  his 
superior  fitness  for  the  chair  of  Gregory  I.  and  Gregory 
VII.  Innocent  VIII.  smiled;  and  the  thunders  gathered 
beyond  the  Alps. 

The  state  of  Rome  was  in  accord  with  the  state  of  the 
Sacred  College.  We  may  hesitate  to  believe  Infessura 
when  he  tells  us  that,  if  criminals  were  by  some  chance 
arrested,  they  bought  their  liberty  at  the  Vatican; 
but  we  have  in  Burchard's  Diary  a  sombre,  incidental 
indication  of  the  condition  of  Rome.  There  is  in  modern 
literature  some  tendency  to  look  with  indulgent  eye 
on  the  coloured  gaiety  of  late  mediaeval  Rome,  but — to 
say  nothing  of  the  ideals  which  the  cardinals  professed 
— the  insecurity  of  life  and  property  and  the  widespread 
brutality  show  that  this  license  was  far  removed  from 
genuine  Humanism.  Some  years  later,  when  Rodrigo's 
son  Juan  was  murdered,  a  boatman  said,  when  they 
asked  why  he  had  not  reported  seeing  a  body  cast  into 
the  river,  that  it  was  not  customary  to  have  any  inquiry 
made  into  a  nightly  occurrence  of  that  kind.  Rodrigo 
Borgia,  the  Vice-Chancellor,  paid  no  heed  to  this  con- 
dition of  the  city.  He  added  year  by  year  to  the  long 
list  of  his  bishoprics  and  emoluments,  and  prepared  to 
renew  the  struggle  for  the  tiara.  He  lost,  or  discarded, 
Vannozza  when  she  married  her  third  husband  in  i486 
and  entered  upon  a  more  sordid  and  equally  notorious 
liaison.  His  cousin,  Adriana  Orsini,  had  charge  of  a 
young  orphan,  Giulia  Farnese,  a  very  beautiful,  golden- 
haired  girl.  She  married  Adriana's  son,  Orso  Orsini, 
in  1489 — her  fifteenth  year — and  at  the  same  time  be- 


250   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

came  the  Cardinal's  mistress.  Adriana  was  rewarded 
with  a  considerable  influence  and  the  charge  of  the 
yoiing  Lucrezia  Borgia.' 

The  death  of  Innocent  on  July  25,  1492,  led  to 
fierce  intrigue  and  passionate  encounters.  There  were 
more  than  two  hundred  murders  in  Rome  during  the 
fourteen  days  before  the  Conclave,  for  which  twenty- 
two  cardinals  were,  on  August  6th,  immured  in  the 
Sistine  Chapel.  Giuliano  della  Rovere  had  spoiled 
his  prospect  by  too  patent  a  use  of  his  influence  on 
Innocent  VIII.,  and  Borgia  set  himself  to  win  the  next 
most  important  rival,  Ascanio  Sforza.  Historians 
sometimes  smile  at  the  statement  of  Infessura,  that 
four  mule-loads  of  silver  passed  from  Borgia's  palace 
to  that  of  Sforza,  but  it  is  not  improbable.  For  some 
centuries  there  had  been  a  custom  (abolished  a  few  years 
later  by  Leo  X.)  of  sacking  the  palace  of  the  cardinal 
who  was  elected  Pope,  and  it  was  not  unusual  to  take 
precautions.  Borgia  may  have  sent  the  silver  on  this 
pretext,  as  Infessura  suggests,  and  he  would  hardly 
expect  it  to  be  returned.  It  is,  in  fact,  now  certain 
that  Sforza  was  bribed  with  gifts  far  more  valuable 
than  Borgia's  table  silver;  Borgia  offered,  and  after- 
wards gave  him,  his  splendid  palace,  the  Vice-Chancel- 
lorship, the  bishopric  of  Erlan  (worth  10,000  ducats  a 
year),  and  other  appointments.  The  sober  Cardinal 
Colonna  accepted  the  abbey  of  Subiaco  (or  2000  ducats 
a  year).  Eleven  cardinals  seem  to  have  sold  their 
votes,  and  Borgia  already  had  three  supporters  and  his 
own  vote.     He  secured  his  majority  and  hastily  retired 

'  I  may  repeat  that  I  am  not  reproducing  disputed  statements,  or 
relying  on  uncertain  chronicles,  in  these  chapters.  The  evidence  may 
be  examined  in  Thuasne,  Pastor,  L'Epinois,  Creighton,  Gregorovius, 
and  von  Reumont  {Ceschichte  der  Stadt  Rom,  3  vols.,  1867-8). 


Alexander  VI.,  the  Borgia-Pope       251 

behind  the  altar,  where  Papal  vestments  of  three  sizes 
were  laid  out,  and  the  genial  Romans  presently  roared 
their  greetings  to  Alexander  VI.' 

Rome  and  Italy  then  sustained  their  parts  in  the 
comedy.  Alexander,  although  now  sixty  years  old, 
was  a  vigorous  and  capable  man,  and  some  advantage 
would  be  expected  from  his  Pontificate.  But  one's 
sense  of  humour  is  excited  when  one  reads  in  Burchard's 
Diary,  or  in  the  letter  (reproduced  by  Thuasne)  written 
by  the  General  of  the  Camaldolite  monks,  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  rejoicings  at  Rome.  After  the  coronation  at 
St.  Peter's  on  August  27th,  Alexander  received,  on  the 
steps  of  the  great  church,  the  greetings  of  the  orators 
who  represented  the  northern  cities.  One  wonders 
what  was  the  countenance  of  the  massed  prelates  and 
nobles  when  the  Genoese  orator  read:  "Thou  art  so 
adorned  with  the  glory  of  virtue,  the  merit  of  discipline, 
the  holiness  of  thy  life  .  .  .  that  we  must  hesitate  to 
say  whether  it  is  more  proper  to  offer  thee  to  the  Pon- 
tificate or  to  offer  that  most  sacred  and  glorious  dignity 
to  thee."  And,  as  Alexander  passed  in  stately  proces- 
sion to  the  Lateran,  he  read  on  the  triumphal  arches 
which  adorned  the  route,  such  maxims  as  "Chastity  and 
Charity, "  and  "Great  was  Rome  under  Cassar,  now  is 
she  most  great.  Alexander  the  Sixth  reigns:  Cassar 
was  a  man,  this  is  a  God." 

I  make  no  apology  for  inserting  these  apparently 
trivial  details  in  so  condensed  a  narrative.  They,  most 
of  all,  illumine  the  next  momentous  phase  of  the  history 
of  the  Papacy.      In  that  year,  1492,  a  little  German 

'  See  the  evidence  in  Thuasne  (ii.,  6io),  L'Epinois  (pp.  389-91),  and 
Pastor  (v.,  382).  A  writer  in  the  American  Catholic  Quarterly  Review 
(1900,  p.  262)  observes:  "That  Borgia  secured  his  election  through  the 
rankest  simony  is  a  fact  too  well  authenticated  to  admit  a  doubt." 


252    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

boy,  named  Martin  Luther,  sat  at  his  books  in  the 
remote  town  of  Mansfeld. 

Infessura  records  that  Alexander  opened  his  Pon- 
tificate with  large  promises  and  small  instalments  of 
reform.  He  was  going  to  improve  the  condition  of 
Rome  and  the  Church,  to  pacify  Italy,  and  to  check 
the  Turks;  he  would  remove  his  children  from  Rome 
and  reduce  the  number  of  sinecures  at  the  Curia.  He 
did,  in  fact,  make  a  drastic  beginning  of  the  administra- 
tion of  justice,  and  even  appointed  certain  hours  during 
which  he  would  himself  hear  grievances.  Possibly  he 
had  a  sincere  mood  of  reform;  though  we  are  not  dis- 
posed to  be  charitable  when  we  recall  the  appalling 
levity  with  which,  a  few  years  later,  after  the  murder 
of  his  son,  he  returned  to  vicious  ways.  Whatever  his 
initial  mood  was,  he  soon  entered  upon  courses  which 
made  his  Pontificate  one  of  the  most  degraded  in  the 
annals  of  the  Papacy.  Modern  research  has  discred- 
ited some  of  the  most  romantic  crimes  attributed  to 
him,  but  it  leaves  on  his  memory  an  indictment  which 
no  eager  search  for  good  qualities  can  materially  lessen. 

He  sustained  the  scandal  of  his  personal  conduct 
until  the  end  of  his  life,  and  I  will  dismiss  it  briefly. 
During  the  first  four  years  of  his  Pontificate,  the  youth- 
ful Giulia  Orsini  was  his  chief  favorita — others  are 
occasionally  mentioned  with  that  title  by  the  ambas- 
sadors— and  she  was  known  to  the  wits  of  Rome  as 
"the  Spouse  of  Christ."  She  and  Adriana  Orsini  and 
Girolama  (the  Pope's  elder  daughter)  are  described 
as  "the  heart  and  eyes  of  Alexander,"  and  suitors  had 
to  seek  their  favour.  When  Giulia's  brother  Alexander 
received  the  red  hat  (Sept.  20,  1493),  Rome  gave  the 
future  Pope — who  was  by  no  means  without  personal 
merit — the  name  of  "The  Petticoat  Cardinal."     When 


Alexander  VI.,  the  Borgia-Pope       253 

her  daughter  Laura  was  born  in  1497,  the  Pope  was 
generally  believed  to  be  the  father;  though  that  remains 
a  mere  rumour.  Pucci,  in  one  of  his  dispatches,  gives  us 
a  quaint  picture.  Giulia  lived  in  Lucrezia's  palace, 
apart  from  her  husband,  and,  when  the  ambassador 
called  one  day  in  1493,  she  dressed  her  long  golden  hair 
in  his  presence,  and  insisted  that  he  must  see  the  baby; 
and  he  remarks  that  the  baby  was  "so  very  like  the 
Pope  that  one  can  readily  believe  he  was  the  father." 
Giulia  was  an  almost  indispensable  figure  for  some  years 
at  the  domestic  (and  even  greater  than  domestic)  fes- 
tivities in  the  Vatican,  laughing  with  the  cardinals  at 
the  prurient  comedies  and  still  more  prurient  dances 
which  enlivened  the  sacred  palace.^ 

The  last  child  attributed  to  him,  though  not  accepted 
by  all  the  authorities,  seems  to  have  been  born  in  1496 
(his  sixty-sixth  year).  There  is  a  document  dated 
September  i,  1501,  legitimizing  a  certain  Juan  Borgia, 
but  there  are  two  versions  of  this  document.^  The 
first  version  describes  him  as  the  child  of  Cassar  Borgia: 
the  second  says  that  he  was  born  "not  of  the  said  Duke, 
but  of  us  [Alexander]  and  the  said  married  woman." 
Creighton  made  the  singular  suggestion  that  possibly 
Alexander  was  giving  prestige  to  an  illegitimate  off- 
spring of  his  son,  but  it  is  now  agreed  that  the  second 
version  is  the  more  authentic;  it  was  to  be  kept  in  re- 
serve for  some  grave  dispute  of  his  rights.  The  dis- 
tinguished  Venetian   Senator   Sanuto   tells   us^   that, 


'  Again  I  may  refer  to  the  convenient  summaries  of  the  evidence  in 
Pastor  (v.,  417),  L'Epinois  (398),  Gregorovius  (Appendix,  no.  11,  etc.), 
and  Creighton  (iv.,  203). 

^  There  are  copies,  reproduced  by  Gregorovius,  in  the  archives  at  the 
Vatican,  at  Modena,  and  at  Ossuna. 

3  Diarii  (ed.  F.  Stefani),  i.,  369. 


254   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

according  to  letters  received  from  the  Venetian  ambas- 
sador at  Rome  and  from  private  persons,  the  Pope 
had,  about  this  time,  a  child  by  a  married  Roman  lady, 
with  the  connivance  of  her  father,  and  that  the  angry 
husband  slew  his  father-in-law  and  stuck  his  head  on  a 
pole,  with  the  inscription:  "Head  of  my  father-in-law, 
who  prostituted  his  daughter  to  the  Pope."  These 
concurrent  testimonies  are  grave.  Most  historians 
now  rightly  reject  the  charge  that  Alexander  was  inti- 
mate with  his  daughter  Lucrezia,  since  it  rests  only  on 
bitterly  hostile  Neapolitan  gossip;  but  we  cannot  so 
easily  set  aside  the  persistent  statements  of  the  ambas- 
sadors that  a  new  Javorita  appears  at  the  Vatican  from 
time  to  time.  These  were  sometimes  ladies  of  Lucrezia's 
suite. 

Lucrezia,  a  merry,  childish-looking,  golden-haired 
girl,  with  her  father's  high  spirits  and  constant  smile, 
is  not  likely  to  have  remained  virtuous  in  such  surround- 
ings, but  there  is  no  serious  evidence  of  incest.  Before 
her  father's  election  she  was  betrothed  to  a  Spanish 
youth  of  moderate  family,  but  her  father  cancelled  the 
espousals  and  married  her,  at  the  Vatican,  in  1493,  to 
Giovanni  Sforza.  She  was  then,  it  is  calculated,  fifteen 
years  old.  Twelve  cardinals  and  a  hundred  and  fifty 
of  the  great  ladies  of  Rome  attended  the  wedding;  and 
some  of  the  prettier  ladies  remained  to  sup  with  the 
Pope  and  cardinals,  and  applaud  the  loose  comedies 
he  provided.  Giulia  and  Lucrezia  were  present. 
When  the  Pope's  policy  estranged  him  from  Milan,  he 
forced  Lucrezia's  husband  to  swear  that  the  marriage 
had  not  been  consummated,  and  dissolved  it.  It 
seems  probable  that  Giovanni,  in  revenge,  then  put 
into  circulation  the  suggestion  of  incest.  Lucrezia 
married  Alfonso  of  Naples,  who  was  murdered  by  her 


Alexander  VI.,  the  Borgia-Pope       255 

brother  in  1500.  She  then  married  the  son  of  the  Duke 
of  Ferrara:  and  there  is  perhaps  no  more  terrible  in- 
dictment of  the  Papal  Court  under  Alexander  than  the 
fact  that,  when  his  daughter  was  removed  from  it  to 
Ferrara,  she  earned,  and  kept  until  her  death,  a  just 
repute  for  virtue  and  benevolence. 

These  marriages  introduce  us  to  Alexander's  political 
activity,  on  which  some  recent  historians  have  passed 
a  somewhat  lenient  judgment.  Apart,  however,  from 
the  treachery  and  brutality  with  which  his  aims  were 
often  enforced,  we  shall  find  that  at  his  death  he  left 
the  Papacy  almost  landless  and  impoverished,  and  we 
must  conclude  that  his  chief  objects  were  his  personal 
security  and  the  aggrandizement  of  his  children. 

At  the  time  of  Alexander's  accession,  the  duchy  of 
Milan  was  improperly  held  by  Lodovico  Sforza,  brother 
of  the  Cardinal  Ascanio,  who  sought  to  convert  his 
temporary  regency  into  a  permanent  sovereignty. 
In  this  ambition  he  had  the  support  of  France,  while 
Ferrante  of  Naples  endeavoured  to  enforce  the  claim 
of  the  rightful  Duke,  Giovanni  Galeazzo.  Alexander's 
indebtedness  to  Ascanio  bound  him  at  once  to  the  Sfor- 
zas,  and  the  imprudence  of  Ferrante  in  helping  his  com- 
mander, Virginio  Orsini,  to  purchase  from  the  nephew 
of  the  late  Pope  certain  towns  which  Alexander  re- 
garded as  Papal  fiefs,  gave  him  an  occasion  for  animos- 
ity. Cardinal  Giuliano  della  Rovere  was  implicated 
in  this  sale,  and  when  the  Pope  angrily  rebuked  him, 
he  fled  to  Ostia  and  fortified  that  commanding  town. 
Alarmed  at  this  cohesion  of  his  enemies  and  the  sup- 
port of  their  designs  by  Florence,  Alexander  entered 
into  a  counter-league  with  Milan,  Venice,  Siena,  Fer- 
rara, and  Mantua,  and  married  his  daughter  to  Giovanni 
Sforza.     Ferrante,  however,   appealed  to  Spain,  sub- 


256   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

mitting  (with  the  support  of  Cardinal  della  Rovere) 
that  the  corrupt  election  and  profligate  life  of  Alexan- 
der demanded  the  attention  of  a  General  Council,  and 
the  Pope  sought  a  compromise.  The  matter  of  the 
towns  in  Romagna  was  adjusted,  Alexander's  son 
Jofre  was  betrothed  to  an  illegitimate  daughter  of 
Alfonso  of  Calabria,  and  his  younger  son,  Juan,  Duke 
of  Gandia,  was  wedded  to  a  Spanish  princess.  Caesar 
was  destined  for  the  Church  and  was  made  a  cardinal 
on  September  20,  1493.  As  Alexander  had  sworn 
before  his  election  not  to  create  new  cardinals,  and  now 
calmly  absolved  himself  from  his  promise  and  promoted 
several,  the  hostile  cardinals  again  angrily  deserted  him. 
Ferrante  died  on  January  27,  1494,  and  the  Pope 
had  to  confront  a  delicate  problem.  France,  instigated 
by  Milan,  pressed  a  claim  to  the  kingdom  of  Naples, 
and  Alfonso  II.  demanded  the  investiture  in  succession 
to  Ferrante.  Charles  of  France  refused  to  be  consoled 
with  the  Golden  Rose  which  Alexander  sent  him  in 
refusing  to  recognize  his  claim  to  Naples,  and  he  threat- 
ened a  General  Council  or  a  separation  of  the  French 
Church.  When  Alexander  proceeded  to  take  Ostia  by 
force,  driving  Cardinal  Giuliano  to  France,  and  sent 
Cassar  to  crown  Alfonso  at  Naples,  the  French  monarch 
announced  that  he  would  lead  his  army  into  Italy  in 
order  to  recover  Naples,  to  reform  the  Church,  and  to 
conquer  the  Turks.  The  latter  purpose  furnished  the 
Pope  with  a  pretext  for  a  disgraceful  move.  Djem,  the 
brother  of  the  Sultan  Bajazet,  had  been  enjoying 
the  dissipations  of  Rome  since  1489,  and  Bajazet  paid 
the  Papacy  40,000  ducats  a  year  to  keep  his  younger 
brother  in  this  gilded  captivity.  Since  Alexander's 
accession,  Bajazet  had  refused  to  pay  the  fee,  and  the 
Pope  now  wrote  to  the  Sultan  to  say  that  the  King  of 


Alexander  VI.,  the  Borgia- Pope       257 

France  was  coming  to  seize  Djem  and  make  him  the 
pretext  for  a  war  on  the  Turks;  Bajazet  must  at  once 
send  40,000  ducats  to  enable  him  to  resist  the  French. 
The  Sultan  sent  the  money,  but  his  and  the  Pope's 
envoy  were  captured  by  Cardinal  della  Rovere's  brother, 
and  were  relieved  of  the  money  and  the  Sultan's  letter. 
When  this  letter  was  published,  Christendom  learned 
with  horror  that  the  Sultan  had  offered  its  Pope  300,000 
ducats  if  he  would  have  Djem  assassinated.^ 

Of  the  war  which  followed  little  need  be  said.  As 
the  victorious  French  advanced,  Alexander  tremblingly 
vacillated.  At  one  moment  he  imprisoned  the  pro- 
French  cardinals,  and  then  released  them;  and  at  an- 
other moment  he  packed  his  treasures  for  flight,  and 
then  decided  to  meet  the  French  King.  Alfonso  be- 
wailed that  the  Pope's  arm  was  too  weak  or  too  cowardly 
to  launch  an  anathema  against  the  invader.  In  the 
end  the  Pope  met  and  disarmed  Charles.  To  the 
intense  disgust  of  Giuliano  della  Rovere,  who  had  come 
with  the  King  in  expectation  of  the  tiara,  he  persuaded 
Charles  that  an  Italian,  even  in  the  chair  of  Peter, 
could  hardly  be  expected  to  lead  a  saintly  life;  and  to 
the  equal  indignation  of  Alfonso  he,  while  refusing  to 
recognize  Charles's  claim  to  the  throne  of  Naples, 
abandoned  the  Neapolitan  alliance  and  gave  his  son 
Caesar  as  a  hostage  of  his  good  behaviour.  With  similar 
treachery  to  the  Sultan  he  abandoned  Djem  to  Charles, 
yet  stipulated  that  the  yearly  40,000  ducats  should 
still  go  to  the  Papal  treasury.^ 

'Alexander  said  that  the  letter  published  was  a  forgery,  and  some 
historians  have  sought  to  prove  this  by  internal  evidence.  It  is  the 
general  feeling  of  recent  authorities  that  the  letter  is,  at  leastin  sub- 
stance, genuine.   Sec  Creighton  (iv.,  Appendix  9)  and  Pastor  (v.,  429). 

*  Djem  died  shortly  afterwards,  and  it  was  rumoured  that  Alexander 
17 


258    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Charles  took  Naples,  and  soon  learned  that  the  ver- 
satile Pope  had,  behind  his  back,  entered  into  a  league 
against  him  with  IMaximilian  of  Germany,  Ferdinand 
of  Spain,  Venice,  and  Lodovico  Sforza.  Alexander 
prudently  quitted  Rome  when  the  French  King  re- 
turned, and  flung  after  him  a  feeble  threat  of  anathema, 
as  he  was  cutting  his  way  through  the  allies.  But  by 
the  aggrandizement  of  his  family  he  made  an  evil  use 
of  the  peace  which  followed.  Caesar  was  made  legate 
for  Naples  and  his  nephew  Juan  legate  for  Perugia;  and 
to  his  favourite  son  Juan,  Duke  of  Gandia,  he  assigned 
the  important  Papal  fief  of  the  duchy  of  Benevento,  to 
be  held  by  him  and  his  heirs  for  ever.  Even  loyal 
cardinals  grumbled  at  the  scandal,  while  the  outspoken 
and  more  distant  critics  spread  in  every  country  the 
story  of  his  private  life.  Alexander,  delivered  from  the 
menace  both  of  France  and  Naples,  cast  aside  all  re- 
straint. But  his  gaiety  was  soon  darkened  by  a  grave 
tragedy,  and  it  is,  perhaps,  the  most  precise  and  most 
damning  characterization  of  the  man  to  record  that 
even  this  appalling  catastrophe,  occurring  near  the 
close  of  his  seventh  decade  of  life,  did  not  disturb  for 
more  than  a  few  months  the  licentious  course  of  his 
conduct. 

On  June  14,  1497,  Vannozza  gave  a  banquet  to  her 
sons  and  a  few  friends  in  the  suburbs.  Cassar  and 
Juan  returned  to  the  city  together,  and  were  joined  by 
a  masked  man  who  had  for  some  weeks  been  seen  in 
communication  with  the  young  Duke.  Juan  left  his 
brother  with  a  light  hint  that  he  had  an  assignation, 
and  the  same  night  he  was  murdered  and  his  body 

had  earned  the  300,000  ducats  by  administering  a  slow  poison  before 
he  left  Rome.  But  the  better  authorities  tell  us  that  the  weakened  and 
dissolute  youth  contracted  a  chill  and  died  of  bronchitis. 


Alexander  VI.,  the  Borgia-Pope       259 

thrown  into  the  Tiber.  We  are  as  far  as  contemporaries 
were  from  identifying  the  murderer.  That  it  was 
Ccesar  Borgia  few  serious  historians  now  beHeve.  That 
suggestion  did  not  arise  until  nine  months  after  the 
murder,  and  the  motives  alleged  are  not  convincing. 
It  is  more  plausibly  claimed  that  the  Sforzas  and  the 
Orsini  adopted  this  means  of  striking  at  the  heart  of 
the  Pontiff,  but  it  is  equally  possible  that  Juan  incurred 
the  penalty  of  some  dangerous  seduction.  I  am  con- 
cerned only  with  Alexander.  Appalled  by  this  sudden 
clouding  of  his  prosperity,  the  Pope  summoned  his 
cardinals  and  announced  with  tears  that  he  would 
remove  his  children  from  Rome  and  abandon  his  cor- 
rupt ways.  Six  cardinals  were  at  once  appointed  to 
draw  up  a  scheme  of  Church-reform,  and  the  draft  of 
a  Bull,  which  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  Vatican  archives, 
shows  with  what  devotion  Cardinals  Costa  and  Caraffa 
and  their  colleagues  applied  themselves  to  the  long- 
desired  task.  But  before  the  end  of  the  year  Alexander 
had  returned  to  his  vices  and  abandoned  the  idea  of 
reform.  He  informed  the  cardinals  that  he  wished  to 
release  Caesar  from  membership  of  their  College,  in 
order  that  he  might  be  free  to  contract  an  exalted 
marriage  and  pursue  his  ambition;  and  it  was  then 
(December,  1497)  that  he  brought  about  the  shameless 
divorce  of  Lucrezia  from  Giovanni  Sforza.  The  Vatican 
chambers  resumed  their  nightly  gaiety. 

The  Orsini  and  the  Colonna  now  buried  their  ancient 
and  deadly  feud  and  united  with  Naples,  and  the  de- 
mand for  a  General  Council  was  ominously  echoed  in 
Germany  and  Spain.  Alexander  sought  at  first  a 
coiinterpoise  in  Naples,  and  wished  to  marry  Cassar  and 
Lucrezia  into  the  family  of  Alfonso.  After  some  hesi- 
tation, and  with  marked  reluctance,  Alfonso  II.  gave 


26o   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

his  natural  son  Alfonso  to  Lucrezia,  but  he  refused,  in 
spite  of  the  political  advantage,  to  degrade  his  daughter 
Carlotta  by  a  marriage  with  Csesar.  It  is  not  immate- 
rial to  observe  that  Ccesar  had,  like  four  other  cardinals 
of  the  Church,  contracted  the  "French  disease"  which 
was  then  so  fiercely  punishing  the  vice  of  Italy.  It 
happened  that  at  that  time  Louis  XII.  sought  a  divorce, 
and,  at  first  in  the  hope  of  bringing  pressure  on  Naples, 
Cassar,  after  resigning  the  cardinalate  on  August  17th, 
was  sent  to  gratify  and  impress  the  French  Court. 
Even  Giuliano  della  Rovere,  who  lived  quietly  at 
Avignon,  was  induced  to  enter 'the  intrigue.  Carlotta 
and  her  father  still  disdained  the  connexion,  but  Louis 
offered  Caesar  his  young  and  beautiful  niece,  Charlotte 
d'Albret,  and  the  counties  of  Valentinois  and  Diois. 
They  were  married  on  May  226.  (1499),  and  the  Papal 
policy  entered  upon  a  new  phase. 

The  Papacy  and  Venice,  preferring  their  selfish  in- 
terests to  the  welfare  of  Italy,  allied  themselves  with 
France,  and  for  the  hundredth  time  an  invading  army 
descended  upon  the  plains  of  Lombardy.  Spain  and 
Portugal  were  now  angrily  threatening  to  have  the 
Pope — who,  with  equal  warmth,  accused  Isabella  her- 
self of  unchastity — tried  by  a  General  Council  for  his 
scandalous  actions,  and  he  and  Cassar  formed  the  design 
of  establishing,  with  the  aid  of  the  French,  a  strong 
principality  for  Caesar  in  central  Italy.  The  Neapolitan 
alliance  was  discarded,  and  Bulls  were  issued  to  the 
effect  that  the  Lords  of  Rimini,  Pesaro,  Imola,  Faenza, 
Forli,  Urbino,  and  Camerino  had  failed  to  discharge 
their  feudal  duties  to  the  Papacy  and  had  forfeited  their 
fiefs.  The  victorious  progress  of  Cassar  in  these  terri- 
tories was  checked  for  a  time  by  a  revolt  at  Milan, 
but  that  city  was  retaken  by  the  French  in  1500.     The 


Alexander  VL,  the  Borgia-Pope       261 

successful  Jubilee  of  1500,  which  at  one  time  drew 
100,000  pilgrims  to  Rome,  filled  the  coffers  and  helped 
to  exalt  the  spirit  of  the  Pope.  His  character,  indeed, 
seemed  to  become  more  buoyant  and  defiant  as  his  age 
advanced.  During  that  year  he  had  a  narrow  escape 
from  death,  owing  to  the  fall  of  the  roof  of  the  Sala  de' 
Pape,  and  Lucrezia's  husband  was  cut  to  pieces  in  his 
chamber  by  the  soldiers,  and  at  the  command,  of 
Cassar.  These  events  hardly  dimmed  the  joy  of  the 
Pope.  Cassar  received  the  Golden  Rose  and  was  made 
Gonfaloniere  of  the  Church;  and  he  was  permitted  to 
appropriate  a  large  share  of  the  Jubilee  funds  and  to 
exact  large  sums  from  the  cardinals  whom  the  Pope 
promoted  in  1500.  Meantime,  the  ambassadors  relate, 
Giulia  Orsini  retained  her  influence  over  the  seventy- 
year  old  Pope,  and  other  favorite  made  a  transient 
appearance  at  the  Vatican. 

The  next  two  years  were  employed  in  the  establish- 
ment of  Caesar's  power  in  Romagna  and  the  reduction 
of  the  Pope's  personal  enemies.  Louis  of  France  and 
Ferdinand  of  Spain  drew  up  their  famous,  or  infamous, 
scheme  for  the  partition  of  Naples,  and  Alexander  con- 
veniently discovered  for  them,  and  proclaimed  in  a 
Bull,  that  Federigo  of  Naples  had,  by  an  alliance  with 
the  Turks,  become  a  traitor  to  Christendom.  The 
fall  of  Naples  involved  the  ruin  of  the  Colonna,  and 
they  and  the  Savelli  were  condemned  to  lose  their 
estates  for  rebellion  against  the  Holy  See.  From  part 
of  these  estates  the  Pope  formed  the  duchy  of  Sermo- 
neta  for  Lucrezia's  two-year-old  son,  Rodrigo,  and  the 
duchy  of  Nepi  was  bestowed  on  his  own  infant  son 
Juan.  Alexander  next  turned  his  attention  to  Ferrara, 
and,  when  Venice  and  Florence  forbade  him  to  attack 
it,  he  arranged  a  marriage  of  the  widowed  Lucrczia 


262    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

with  the  Duke's  son  Alfonso:  overcoming  the  abhor- 
rence of  the  proud  Este  family  by  the  influence  of  Louis 
XII.  and  by  a  grant  to  the  Duke  of  all  Church-dues  in 
Ferrara  for  three  years.  From  Ferrara,  when  it  fell 
to  his  sister,  Caesar  would  have  a  comparatively  easy 
march  on  Bologna,  if  not  Florence. 

So  the  year  1501  ended  in  such  rejoicings  as  the  for- 
tune of  the  Borgia  family  inspired.  At  the  date  October 
II,  1 501,  Burchard  dispassionately  notes  in  his  diary 
that  the  Pope  was  unable  to  attend  to  his  spiritual  duties, 
but  was  not  prevented  from  enjoying,  in  the  Vatican, 
a  "chestnut  dance"  and  other  performances  of  fifty 
nude  courtesans  whom  Caesar  introduced.'  Lucrezia, 
whose  purity  some  recent  writers  are  eager  to  vindicate, 
was  present  with  her  father  and  brother.  On  Decem- 
ber 30th  she  was  married.  Alexander  gave  her  the 
finest  set  of  pearls  in  Europe  and  100,000  ducats;  and 
for  a  week  Rome  enjoyed  such  spectacles  and  bull-fights 
as  had  not  been  seen  for  years.  Within  the  Vatican 
such  comedies  as  the  MencEchmi  of  Plautus  were  enacted 
before  the  Pope  and  his  family  and  cardinals.  Even 
tolerant  Italy  now  broke  into  caustic  criticisms,  and 
Caesar  replied  vigorously  by  the  daggers  of  his  followers. 
The  Pope  genially  urged  him  to  let  men  talk. 

The  last  phase  is,  in  its  way,  not  less  repulsive.  By 
heartless  treachery  and  brilliant  fighting  Caesar  spread 
his  sway  over  central  Italy  and  Alexander  watched  and 

'  Diarium,  iii.,  167.  The  details  of  this  dance,  which  Burchard  de- 
scribes, and  cjf  the  orgy  which  followed,  may  not  be  translated.  It  is 
absurd  to  question  Burchard's  evidence  on  this  matter;  he  was  then 
Master  of  Ceremonies  at  the  Papal  Court  and  describes  every  move  of 
the  Pope.  The  Papal  servants  took  part  in  the  performance,  and  he 
could  easily  learn  the  details.  The  Florentine  and  other  ambassadors 
speak  of  Caesar  repeatedly  introducing  these  women  into  the  Vatican 
at  night. 


Alexander  VI.,  the  Borgia-Pope       263 

spurred  his  progress.  The  Pope's  attendants  had  to 
endure  unaccustomed  fits  of  anger  and  abuse  when  his 
son  did  not  advance  rapidly  enough.  He  treacherously 
arrested  Cardinal  Orsini;  and  the  Cardinal's  aged 
mother,  who  was  ejected  from  her  palace,  had  to  send 
to  the  Pope  (by  Orsini's  mistress)  a  magnificent  pearl 
which  Alexander  coveted  before  she  was  allowed  to 
provide  her  son  with  decent  food.  Cardinal  Orsini 
died,  and  his  property  was  confiscated.  Cardinal 
Michiel  died,  and  his  fortune  of  150,000  ducats  was 
appropriated.  The  College  of  Cardinals  trembled 
and  the  famous  legend  of  the  Borgia  poison  spread 
over  Italy.  ^  Nine  new  cardinals,  mostly  of  unworthy 
character,  were  created  and  are  said  to  have  paid 
130,000  ducats  for  the  dignity,  and  64,000  ducats  were 
raised  by  inventing  new  offices  in  the  Curia.  Alexander, 
although  seventy-two  years  old,  was  in  robust  health, 
and  looked  forward  to  years  of  pleasure  under  the  pro- 
tection of  his  victorious  son.  And  one  night  in  the 
unhealthy  heat  of  August  (the  5th  or  6th)  he  and 
Ccesar  sat  late  at  supper  with  Cardinal  Adriano  da 
Corneto.  Romance  has  it  that  the  poisoned  wine 
they  intended  for  their  host  was  served  to  them: 
modern  history  is  content  with  the  known  malaria  of 
an  autumn  night.  ^     On  August  i8th  Alexander  died, 


•  There  is,  as  Pastor  and  Creighton  admit,  grave  reason  to  think  that 
Orsini  and  Michiel  were  poisoned,  but  charges  of  this  kind  are  difficult 
to  check,  and  certainly  there  is  a  good  deal  of  romance  in  the  Borgia 
legend.  The  death-rate  of  cardinals  under  Alexander  was  not  more 
than  normal.  See  Baron  Corvo's  Chronicles  of  the  House  of  Borgia 
(1901),  and  R.  Sabatini's  Life  of  Cesare  Borgia  (191 1). 

'  The  poison  theory  is  not  mentioned  by  Burchard  or  the  chief  am- 
bassadors, and  is  positively  advanced  only  by  Neapolitan  or  later 
writers.  No  historian  seems  now  to  entertain  it.  Alexander's  illness, 
which  lasted  thirteen  days,  followed  a  course  more  consistent  with 


264   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

and  both  Caesar  and  Cardinal  Adriano  were  seriously 
ill. 

Of  other  actions  of  Alexander  his  connexion  with 
Savonarola  alone  demands  some  consideration,  and  it 
must  be  treated  briefly.  On  July  25,  1495,  Alexander, 
in  friendly  terms,  summoned  Savonarola  to  Rome  to 
give  an  account  of  the  prophetic  gifts  he  claimed. 
Alexander  was  very  tolerant  of  criticisms  of  his  vices, 
except  where  they  might  provoke  kings  to  summon  a 
council,  and  it  is  probable  that  he  wished  to  silence 
the  politician  rather  than  the  preacher;  Savonarola 
vigorously  supported  the  idea  of  an  alliance  of  Florence 
with  France,  which  the  Pope  opposed.  Savonarola 
evaded  the  summons  to  Rome,  and  the  Pope  sus- 
pended him  from  preaching  and  endeavoured  to  destroy 
his  authority  by  joining  the  San  Marco  convent  to 
the  Lombard  Congregation.  Savonarola  defeated  the 
Pope  on  the  latter  point,  and  on  February  11,  1496, 
he  returned  to  his  pulpit,  in  defiance  of  the  Pope's 
order  and  at  the  command  of  the  Signoria  of  Florence. 
In  explanation  of  his  act  he  urged  that  Alexander's 
Brief  was  based  on  false  information  and  invalid,  and 
he  denounced  Roman  corruption  more  freely  than  ever. 
Alexander,  in  November,  directed  that  a  new  congre- 
gation should  be  formed  out  of  the  Roman  and  Tuscan 
convents,'  and  when  Savonarola  and  his  monks  again 
defeated  the  project,  the  Pope  had  recourse  to  secular 
measures. 

A  mind  like  that  of  the  exalted  and  feverish  preacher 

malaria,  and  the  very  rapid  decomposition  of  his  body,  which  seems  to 
have  impressed  Lord  Acton,  is  not  inexplicable  at  that  season. 

'  Savonarola  was  head  of  the  Tuscan  Congregation  of  the  Dominican 
Order,  and  these  projjosals — wliich  were  inspired  by  jealous  coIleaj,'ues 
at  Rome — aimed  at  putting  him  under  a  new  and  hostile  jurisdiction. 


Alexander  VI.,  the  Borgia-Pope       265 

was  not  likely  to  escape  error  and  exaggeration  in  such 
circumstances,  and  his  opponents  in  Florence  made 
progress.  Alexander  now  offered  the  coveted  posses- 
sion of  Pisa  to  the  Signoria  if  they  would  desert  Sa- 
vonarola and  the  idea  of  a  French  alliance.  The  monk 
was  forbidden  by  the  authorities  to  preach,  and  his 
defiance  of  the  Signoria  as  well  as  the  Papacy  led  to 
disorders  of  which  the  Pope  took  advantage  to  publish 
a  sentence  of  excommunication  (June  18,  1497).  Alex- 
ander had  meantime  again  listened  to  entreaties  of 
delay  and  inquiry,  but  when  he  heard  that  the  monk 
defied  his  anathema  he  said  that  the  sentence  must 
take  its  course.  Up  to  this  point  the  Pope  had,  in 
view  of  the  very  strong  support  which  Savonarola  had 
at  Florence,  proceeded  with  moderation,  though  we 
may  resent  the  insincerity  of  his  attack;  it  was  not  the 
prophecies,  but  the  policy  and  the  puritanism,  of 
Savonarola  which  interested  him.  He  complained  bit- 
terly to  the  Florentine  ambassadors  of  Savonarola's  at- 
tacks on  himself  and  the  cardinals,  and  was,  as  always, 
alarmed  by  the  monk's  demand  of  a  General  Council. 
However,  the  monk,  not  realizing  the  progress  made 
by  his  enemies,  struck  a  louder  note  of  defiance,  and 
on  the  plea  of  the  public  disorders  to  which  he  gave 
rise,  he  was  arrested  and  put  on  trial.  Alexander 
willingly  granted  the  authorities  a  tithe  on  the  ecclesi- 
astical property  at  Florence  when  they  announced  the 
arrest.  The  sensitive  monk  was,  by  torture,  driven 
into  some  vague  disavowal  of  his  supernatural  preten- 
sions, and  he  and  two  other  friars  were,  on  May  23, 
1498,  hanged  by  the  Florentine  authorities  as  "heretics, 
schismatics,  and  contemners  of  the  Holy  See."  The 
sentence,  however  corruptly  obtained,  was  technically 
just,  since  in  the  legislation  of  the  time  contumacious 


266   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

defiance  of  the  Papacy  implied  heresy ;  but  the  respec- 
tive positions  of  Savonarola  and  Alexander  VI.  in  the 
history  of  religious  progress  are  a  sufficient  monument 
to  the  bravery  and  inflexibility  of  the  great  Florentine 
puritan. 

There  are  few  good  deeds  to  be  put  in  the  scale 
against  the  crimes  and  vices  of  Alexander  VI.  He  made 
a  considerable,  though  futile,  effort  to  rouse  Christen- 
dom against  the  advancing  Turks.  He  fortified  Sant' 
Angelo,  and  engaged  Pinturicchio  to  decorate  the  Vati- 
can apartments.  He  pressed  the  propagation  of  the 
faith  in  the  New  World,  ordered  the  examination  and 
authorization  of  printed  books,  endeavoured  to  check 
heresy  in  Bohemia,  and  vigorously  defended  the  rights 
of  the  Church  in  the  Netherlands.  These  things  cannot 
alter  our  estimate  of  his  character.  He  was  a  selfish 
voluptuary  of — in  view  of  his  position — the  most  ignoble 
type;  he  countenanced  and  employed  fraud,  treachery, 
and  crime;  and  the  condition  in  which  we  shall  soon 
find  the  Papacy  will  show  that  his  policy  had  not  the 
redeeming  merit  of  effecting  the  security  of  the  institu- 
tion over  which  he  ignominiously  presided. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

JULIUS  II.:   THE  FIGHTING   POPE 

THE  single  merit  which  sober  historians  award  to  \ 
Alexander  VI.  is  that,  in  forming  a  powerful  ' 
principality  for  his  son  in  central  Italy,  he  was  re-es- 
tablishing the  States  of  the  Church  and  ensuring  the 
protection  of  the  Papacy.  The  course  of  events  after 
his  death  prevents  us  from  acknowledging  this  claim, 
and  Alexander  himself  must  have  been  well  aware  that 
Caesar  Borgia  would,  if  his  State  endured,  protect  the 
Papacy  only  on  condition  that  he  might  continue  to 
dominate  it.  He  told  Machiavelli  that  he  had  made 
ample  preparation  to  secure  his  position  at  the  death 
of  his  father,  but  his  own  illness  wrecked  his  plans. 
This  is  untrue.  He  was  quite  able  to  direct  his  servants 
and  at  his  father's  death  they  began  to  enforce  his 
blustering  policy.  Some  forced  their  way,  at  the  point 
of  the  dagger,  to  the  Papal  treasury,  and  carried  off  the 
money  and  plate  left  by  the  Pope :  leaving  his  enormous 
debts  to  his  successor.  Others  sought  to  intimidate 
the  cardinals.  But  Caesar's  power  in  the  North  at  once 
began  to  crumble,  his  enemies  gathered  in  force  from 
all  sides,  and  he  was  defeated.  The  cardinals  would  not 
assemble  until  his  troops,  and  those  of  France,  Spain, 
and  Venice,  withdrew  from  Rome. 

The  chief  contest  in  the  Conclave,  which  began  on 

267 


268    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

September  i6th,  lay  between  the  French  Cardinal 
D'Amboise  and  Giuliano  della  Rovere,  who  returned 
from  Avignon.  Neither  could  secure  the  necessary- 
majority,  and  Cardinal  Piccolomini,  nephew  of  Pius  II., 
was  chosen  to  occupy  the  throne  until  a  stronger  man 
could  prevail.  The  more  luxurious  cardinals  may  have 
smiled  at  the  rejoicing  with  which  reformers  greeted 
the  aged  and  virtuous  Pius  III.,  for  they  knew  that  he 
suffered  from  an  incurable  malady.  He  died,  in  fact, 
ten  days  after  his  coronation,  or  on  October  i8th,  and 
the  struggle  was  renewed.  Giuliano  della  Rovere  now 
pushed  his  ambition  with  equal  energy  and  unscrupu- 
lousness.  He  promised  Csesar  Borgia,  who  controlled 
the  extensive  Spanish  vote,  that  he  would  respect  his 
possessions  and  make  him  Gonf aloniere  of  the  Church ' ; 
he  distributed  money  among  the  cardinal- voters ;  he 
agreed  to  the  capitulation  that  whoever  was  elected 
should  summon  a  council  for  the  purpose  of  reform 
within  two  years,  and  should  not  make  war  on  any  Power 
without  the  consent  of  two  thirds  of  the  cardinals.  He 
worked  so  well  that  the  Conclave,  which  met  on  October 
31st,  was  one  of  the  shortest  in  the  history  of  the  Pa- 
pacy. Within  three  hours  the  sealed  window  was  broken 
open  and  the  election  of  Julius  II.  was  announced. 

We  have  in  the  last  chapter  followed  the  romantic 
early  career  of  Giuliano  della  Rovere.  He  was  born 
on  December  5,  1443,  at  Albizzola,  near  Savona,  of  a 
poor  and  obscure  family.  His  uncle,  being  first  a 
professor  and  then  General  of  the  Franciscan  Order, 
sent  him  to  be  educated  in  one  of  the  monasteries  of  that 
Order.  Some  historians  strangely  doubt  whether  he 
actually  took  the  religious  vows,  but  it  was  assuredly 
not  the  custom  of  the  friars  to  keep  young  men  in  their 

'  Burchard,  Diarium,  iii.,  293. 


Julius  II.:  the  Fighting  Pope         269 

monasteries  to  the  age  of  twenty-eight  unless  they  were 
members  of  the  fraternity.  At  that  age  (in  147 1) 
Fra  Giuliano  and  his  cousin  Fra  Pietro  heard  that  their 
uncle  had  become  Sixtus  IV.,  and  they  were  raised  to 
the  cardinalate. 

Giuliano  did  not  emulate  the  vices  which  carried 
off  his  younger  cousin  within  two  years.  He  "lived 
much  as  the  other  prelates  of  that  day  did,"  says 
Guicciardini,  in  a  sober  estimate  of  his  character,  and 
his  three  known  daughters  confirm  the  great  historian 
of  the  time;  but  he  kept  a  comparatively  moderate 
palace  and  spent  money  on  a  refined  patronage  of  art 
and  culture.  He  displayed  some  military  talent  when 
he  commanded  the  Papal  troops  in  Umbria  in  1474,  and 
afterwards  served  as  Legate  in  France  (1476)  and  the 
Netherlands  (1480).  He,  as  we  saw,  maintained  his 
position  after  his  uncle's  death  by  corruptly  ensuring 
the  election  of  Innocent  VIII.  and  exercising  a  para- 
mount influence  over  that  Pontiff.  His  power  inflamed 
the  animosity  of  his  rivals,  and  at  the  accession  of 
Alexander  VI.  he  was  driven  from  Italy.  From  his 
quiet  retreat  in  Avignon  he  instigated  the  French  mon- 
arch to  invade  Italy  and  depose  Alexander,  and,  when 
Alexander  gracefully  disarmed  Charles,  Giuliano  re- 
turned in  disgust  to  Avignon.  It  is  true  that  in  1499 
he  rendered  some  service  to  Alexander,  in  connexion 
with  Caesar's  marriage,  but  he  felt  it  safer  to  remain  in 
Avignon  until  the  announcement  of  Alexander's  death 
recalled  his  many  enemies  to  Rome.^ 


'  Guicciardini's  Storia  d' Italia  and  Burchard's  Diarium  are  the  chief 
authorities,  supplemented  by  the  dispatches  of  the  Italian  ambassadors. 
There  is  a  slight  and  somewhat  antiquated  biography  by  M.  A.  J. 
Dumesnil   (Histoire  de  Jules  II.,   1873)  and  an  abler  study   by   M. 


270    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

In  1503,  at  the  date  of  his  election,  JuHus  II.  had 
long  outlived  his  early  irregularities,  and  had  no  per- 
sonal vices  beyond  a  fiery  temper  and  a  taste  for  wine 
which  his  enemies  magnified  into  a  scandal.  The  famil- 
iar portrait  by  Raphael  brings  him  closer  to  us  than  any 
of  the  Pontiffs  whom  we  have  yet  considered.  He  was . 
then  in  his  sixtieth  year,  with  a  scanty  sprinkling  of  grey 
locks  on  his  massive  head,  and  with  an  aspect  of  energy 
and  determination  which  must  have  been  lessened  by 
the  long  white  beard  he  grew  in  later  life.  Though 
troubled — like  most  of  the  Popes  of  this  period — with 
gout,  he  was  still  erect  and  dignified,  and  the  cardinals, 
who  had  hardly  seen  him  for  ten  years,  can  have  had 
little  suspicion  of  the  volcanic  fires  which  were  concealed 
by  his  habitual  silence  and  quiet  enjoyment  of  culture. 
They  soon  learned  that  they  had  created  a  master,  and 
they  lamented  that  he  united  the  manners  of  a  peasant 
with  the  vigour  of  a  soldier.  He  consulted  none,  and 
he  lavished  epithets  on  those  who  lingered  in  the  execu- 
tion of  his  commands.  Yet  this  brusque  and  abusive 
soldier  was  destined,  not  merely  to  place  the  Papal 
States  on  a  surer  foundation  than  ever,  but  to  do  far 
more  even  than  Leo  X.  for  the  artistic  enhancement  of 
Rome. 

The  supreme  aim  which  Julius  held  in  view  from  the 


Brosch  {Papst  Julius  II.,  1878).  J.  F.  Loughlin  has  a  candid  account, 
chiefly  based  on  Brosch,  of  his  early  career  in  The  American  Catholic 
Quarterly  Review.^  Special  treatises  will  be  noticed  in  the  course  of 
the  chapter,  but  there  is  little  dispute  about  the  facts  I  give.  Full 
references  will  be  found  in  the  very  ample,  if  somewhat  lenient,  study 
of  Dr.  Pastor  (vi.),  and  in  the  works  of  Creighton,  Grcgorovius,  and 
von  Reumont. 

'  1900,  pp.  133-147- 


Julius  II.:  the  Fighting  Pope  271 

beginning  of  his  Pontificate  was  the  restoration  of  the 
Papal  possessions,  but  I  may  dismiss  first  the  actions  or 
events  which  have  a  more  personal  relation.  He  heard 
or  said  mass  daily,  and  paid  a  strict  regard  to  his  ecclesi- 
astical duties.  He  reorganized  the  administration  of 
the  city  and  the  Campagna,  suppressed  disorder, 
purified  the  tribunals,  reformed  the  coinage,  and  in 
many  other  respects  corrected  the  vices  of  his  prede- 
cessor, whom  he  had  loathed.  These  maranas  (half- 
converted  Spanish  Jews),  as  he  called  the  Borgias,  had 
fouled  Italy  with  their  presence.  He  improved  the 
Papal  table,  which  had  been  singularly  poor  under 
Alexander,  but  the  vicious  parasites  whom  Alexander 
had  encouraged  now  shrank  from  the  Vatican.  At 
first  he  indulged  the  characteristic  Papal  weakness, 
nepotism.  At  his  first  Consistory  (November  29,  1503) 
two  of  the  four  cardinals  promoted  were  members 
of  his  family — his  uncle  and  nephew — and  two  years 
later  he  married  his  natural  daughter  Felicia  to  one  of 
the  Orsini,  his  niece  Lucrezia  to  one  of  the  Colonna,  and 
his  nephew  Niccolo  della  Rovere  to  Giulia  Orsini 's 
daughter  Laura.  One  cannot  say,  as  some  historians 
do,  that  he  was  no  nepotist;  though  one  may  admit 
that,  in  the  words  of  Guicciardini,  "he  did  not  carry 
nepotism  beyond  due  bounds."  To  the  obligations 
he  had  contracted  in  bargaining  for  the  Papacy  he  was 
quite  unscrupulously  blind,  and,  although  he  issued  a 
drastic  Bull  against  simony  in  1505  (January  14th),  his 
grand  plans  imposed  on  him  such  an  expenditure  that 
he  even  increased  the  sale  of  offices  and  indulgences 
until  the  annual  income  of  the  Papacy  rose  to  350,000 
ducats. 

Julius  at  once  made  it  plain  that  he  was  not  only 
determined   to  recover  the  Papal   States,   but  would 


2']2    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

override  any  moral  obligation  or  sentimental  prejudice 
in  the  pursuit  of  his  object.  The  treasury  was  empty, 
and  he  had  contracted,  at  the  price  of  several  Spanish 
votes,  to  respect  the  person  and  possessions  of  Ccesar 
Borgia.  But  Venice  had  encouraged  the  petty  lords 
of  Romagna  to  recover  the  places  which  Ccesar  had 
wrested  from  them,  and  itself  had  designs  on  some  of 
the  towns.  Grasping  the  pretext  that  the  whole  of 
Romagna  was  thus  in  danger,  Julius  summoned  Caesar 
to  surrender  the  remaining  strongholds  to  the  Church. 
When  Caesar  refused,  he  found  himself  a  prisoner  of  the 
Pope,  instead  of  Gonfaloniere  of  his  troops,  and  he 
seems  to  have  been  dazed  by  the  sudden  collapse  of  his 
brilliant  fortune.  Spain  withdrew  the  Spanish  mer- 
cenaries from  Ccesar's  service,  Venice  occupied  Faenza 
and  Rimini,  and  most  of  his  towns  cast  off  their  en- 
forced allegiance.  After  a  futile  struggle  with  the 
Pope  the  fallen  prince  surrendered  to  Julius  his  three 
remaining  towns — Cesena,  Forli,  and  Bertinoro — and 
was  allowed  to  retire  to  Naples.  There,  at  the  treach- 
erous instigation  of  the  Pope, '  he  was  arrested  and  sent 
to  Spain.  He  escaped  from  Spain  two  years  afterwards, 
and  died  in  1507,  fighting  in  a  petty  war  on  a  foreign 
soil. 

Venice,  now  at  the  height  of  her  power  and  flushed 
with  wealth  and  conquest,  paid  little  heed  when,  in  the 
winter  of  1503-4,  Julius  made  repeated  demands  for  the 
restoration  of  the  places  she  had  seized  in  Romagna. 
She  had,  she  said,  not  taken  them  from  the  Church,  and 
the  Church  would,  if  she  restored  them,  hand  them  to 
some  other  "nephew."  The  Venetian  ambassador  at 
Rome  seems  to  have  miscalculated  entirely  the  energy 

'  Pastor  (vi.,  244)  quotes  from  the  Vatican  archives  a  letter  in  which 
JuHus  urges  the  Spanish  commander  at  Naples  to  arrest  Caesar. 


Julius  II.:  the  Fighting  Pope  273 

of  the  Pope,  and  Venice  probably  thought  that  her 
support  of  his  candidature  and  his  lack  of  troops  and 
resources  promised  a  profitable  compromise ;  nor  can  we 
wonder  if  statesmen  failed  at  times  to  see  the  justice 
of  the  Roman  contention,  that  seizure  by  the  sword  was 
a  legitimate  title  in  princes  who  gave  cities  to  the  Church 
but  wholly  invalid  in  princes  who  took  them  from  the 
Church.  Venice  offered  to  pay  tribute  for  the  towns 
which  had  been  Papal  fiefs.  This  Julius  sharply  refused, 
and  he  appealed  to  France,  Spain,  and  the  Emperor  to 
assist  him.  Toward  the  close  of  the  year  (September 
22,  1504)  Louis  and  Maximilian  concluded  an  agree- 
ment at  Blois  to  join  Julius  against  Venice,  but  a  quarrel 
destroyed  the  compact,  and  Julius  had  again  to  deal 
with  Venice.  The  Venetians  surrendered  all  but 
Faenza  and  Rimini,  and  Julius,  with  a  protest  that 
the  retention  of  these  towns  was  unjustified,  resumed 
amicable  relations  with  them. 

The  Pope's  next  move  has  won  the  admiration  of 
many  historians,  though  it  has  prompted  so  liberal  a 
judge  as  Creighton  to  exclaim  that  "his  cynical  con- 
sciousness of  political  wrong-doing"  is  "as  revolting  as 
the  frank  unscrupulousness  of  Alexander  VI. "  During 
the  period  of  disintegration  of  the  Papal  States  the 
Baglioni  had  mastered  Perugia  and  the  Bentivogli  had 
taken  possession  of  Bologna.  Julius  had  at  his  acces- 
sion confirmed  the  position  at  Bologna,  but  in  the  spring 
of  1506  he  resolved  to  recover  both  cities.  France  and 
Spain  hesitated  to  lend  their  aid  for  this  project,  and 
on  August  26th  he  impetuously  ended  the  slow  nego- 
tiations by  sending  a  peremptory  order  to  France  to 
assist  him  and  setting  out  at  the  head  of  his  troops. 
With  only  five  hundred  horse — though  he  had  sent  on 

'  v.,  28. 
18 


274    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

an  envoy  to  engage  Swiss  mercenaries — Julius  and  nine 
of  his  cardinals  set  out  on  the  long  march  to  Perugia. 
At  Orvieto  his  anxiety  found  some  relief.  Giampaolo 
Baglione,  realizing  the  force  which  the  Pope  would  even- 
tually command,  came  to  surrender  Perugia,  and  at  the 
beginning  of  September  Julius  sang  a  solemn  mass  in 
the  Franciscan  convent  at  Perugia  which  had  once  been 
his  home.  His  energy  was  now  fully  aroused,  in  spite 
of  the  discouragement  of  the  word  sent  by  Louis  XII. 
It  is  said  that  he  already  talked  of  leading  his  valiant 
troops  against  the  Turks  when  he  had  settled  the  affairs 
of  Italy.  He  crossed  the  hills,  in  bleak  early-winter 
weather,  in  spite  of  gout,  at  the  head  of  his  2500  men, 
and  boldly  sent  on  to  Bentivoglio  a  sentence  of  excom- 
munication and  interdict.  Bentivoglio — more  deeply 
moved  by  the  approach  of  4000  French  soldiers — fled, 
and,  again  without  striking  a  blow,  the  Pope  entered 
Bologna  in  triumph  on  November  nth.'  After  spend- 
ing five  months  in  the  reorganization  of  government  he 
returned  to  Rome  on  March  28th  (1507)  and  enjoyed  a 
magnificent  ovation.  It  may  give  a  juster  idea  of  his 
mental  power  to  add  that  he  had  already  (on  April 
18,  1506)  laid  the  first  stone  of  the  new  St.  Peter's 
designed  on  so  vast  a  scale  by  Bramante. 

Three  months  after  his  return  to  Rome  Julius  had 
fresh  and  grave  reason  for  anxiety.  France  and  Spain 
had  composed  their  differences,  and  in  June  of  that  year 
Ferdinand  was  to  sail  from  Naples  to  meet  the  French 


'  The  date  was  fixed  by  the  astrologers,  but  Burchard  says  that,  in 
order  to  show  his  contempt  for  their  science,  JuHus  unceremoniously 
entered  the  town  on  the  previous  day.  He  acted  more  probably  from 
sheer  impatience.  More  than  one  event  during  his  Pontificate,  in- 
cluding his  coronation  on  November  26,  1503,  was  arranged  by  the 
astrologers. 


Julius  11. :  the  Fighting  Pope  275 

King  at  Savona.  Julius  moved  down  to  Ostia  to  greet 
him,  and  must  have  been  profoundly  disturbed  when  the 
galley  conveying  Ferdinand  and  his  young  French  wife 
passed  the  port  without  a  word.  He  would  hear  that 
the  two  Kings  held  long  and  secret  conferences  at 
Savona,  and  that  among  the  five  cardinals  with  them 
was  D'Amboise,  Louis's  chief  minister,  who  still  hun- 
gered for  the  tiara  of  which  Julius  had  robbed  him. 
There  had  for  some  time  been  bad  news  from  France. 
Louis  was  reported  as  saying:  "The  Rovere  are  a  peas- 
ant family ;  nothing  but  the  stick  on  his  back  will  keep 
the  Pope  in  order."  Julius  sent  Cardinal  Pallavicino 
to  Savona,  but  he  was  not  admitted  to  the  counsels  of 
the  monarchs.  It  was  rumoured  that  they  meditated 
the  reform  of  the  Church:  w^hich  meant  a  council  and 
an  inquiry  into  the  election  of  Julius  11. 

Papal  diplomacy,  which,  when  Papal  interests  were 
endangered,  never  considered  "Italian  independence," 
for  a  moment  now  dictated  an  alliance  with  the  Emperor- 
elect,  Maximilian,  who  had  himself  proposed  to  come  to 
Rome  for  his  coronation.  There  are  vague  indications 
that  that  dreamy  monarch  already  entertained  the  idea 
of  uniting  the  tiara  with  the  imperial  crown  on  his  own 
head.'  However  that  may  be,  Julius  sent  Cardinal 
Carvajal  to  dissuade  him  from  coming  to  Rome,  to 
bring  about  an  alliance  of  the  Christian  Powers  against 
the  Turks  (which  would  disarm  Ferdinand  and  Louis 
as  regards  Juhus),  and  to  enter  into  a  special  alliance 
with  France  and  Germany  against  Venice.  The  Papal 
envoy  Aretini  told  the  Venetian  envoy  that,  when  the 
danger  to  Italy  from  an  alliance  of  Louis  and  Maximil- 


'  See  A.  Schulte,  Kaiser  Maximilian  I.  ah  Kandidalfiir  den  Papstliclien 
Stuhl  (1906).     The  point  is  disputed. 


276    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

ian  was  pointed  out,  Julius  exclaimed:  "Perish  the 
whole  of  Italy  provided  I  get  my  way, " '  The  proposal 
was,  at  all  events,  treacherous;  for  both  Julius  and 
Maximilian  had  treaties  of  peace  with  Venice.  But 
the  age  of  which  Machiavelli  has  codified  the  guiding 
principles  was  insensible  to  considerations  of  political 
honesty.  Maximilian  attacked  Venice  and  was  de- 
feated, because  she  had  the  support  of  France.  Then 
France  was  poisoned  against  the  prosperous  Republic, 
and  the  League  of  Cambrai  was  formed  on  December 
10,  1508:  Maximilian,  Louis,  and  Ferdinand  entered 
into  a  secret  alliance  for  the  destruction  of  Venice,  and 
the  Pope,  as  well  as  the  Kings  of  England  and  Hungary, 
were  invited  to  join  in  the  act  of  brigandage. 

It  is  clear  that  Julius  hesitated  for  some  months  to 
join  the  League;  though  his  hesitation  was  probably 
due  to  some  anxiety  at  the  prospect  of  seeing  the  vic- 
torious armies  of  France  and  Germany  in  Italy  once 
more.  He  tried  to  induce  the  Venetians  to  restore 
Faenza  and  Rimini  to  him  and  merit  his  protection. 
When  they  refused,  he  joined  the  League  (March  23d) 
and  put  his  spiritual  censure  on  the  Venetians.  The 
campaign  occupied  only  a  few  weeks,  and  the  vast 
territory  of  the  Republic  was  divided  among  the  con- 
querors, the  Pope  receiving  Ravenna  and  Cervia  as  well 
as  Faenza  and  Rimini.  But  the  ill  fortune  and  anxiety 
of  Venice  promised  him  further  gains  if  he  would  break 
faith  with  his  allies  and  deal  separately  with  the  Repub- 
lic. To  preserve  the  remnants  of  their  territory  the 
Venetians  approached  the  Pope.  At  first  he  exacted 
formidable  sacrifices,  and,  when  they  refused  and  im- 
portuned him,  he  went  to  his  palace  at  Civita  Vecchia 
to  enjoy  the  rest,  if  not  the  pleasures,  which  Roman 

'  Quoted  by  Brosch,  p.  333. 


Julius  11. :  the  Fighting  Pope  2']^ 

gossip  so  darkly  misrepresented.'  He  perceived,  how- 
ever, that  the  annihilation  of  Venice  would  endanger  his 
own  security,  and  in  time  he  accepted  the  evacuation  of 
Romagna  and  the  abandonment  of  the  Venetian  exercise 
of  authority  over  the  clergy. 

Louis  XII.  learned  with  great  indignation  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1509  that  Julius  had  not  only  withdrawn  from 
the  League  of  Cambrai,  but  was  now  endeavouring  to 
form  a  league  with  Venice,  Ferdinand,  Maximilian,  and 
Henry  VIII.  against  himself.  Henry  and  Maximilian 
refused  to  join,  but  Julius  engaged  fifteen  thousand 
Swiss  and  added  these  to  the  Papal  and  Venetian  troops. 
As  the  Duke  of  Ferrara  was  leagued  with  the  French 
against  Venice,  and  refused  to  follow  the  Pope's  political 
example,  Julius  issued  against  him  an  anathema  which 
a  writer  of  the  time  describes  as  making  his  hair  stand 
on  end,  and  resolved  to  add  Ferrara  to  the  growing 
Papal  States.  In  August  he  set  out  once  more,  di:essed 
in  simple  rochet,  with  the  troops,  and  made  the  tiring 
march  to  Bologna.  There  his  great  plans  nearly  came 
to  a  premature  end.  The  Swiss  failed  him,  and  the 
French  appeared  in  force  before  Bologna,  where  he  lay 
seriously  ill  and  greatly  disedifying  his  attendants  by  the 
vehemence  of  his  rage.  No  doubt  his  threats  of  suicide, 
which  are  recorded,  were  merely  vague  and  rhetorical 
expressions  of  his  despair.  He  saved  himself,  however, 
by  a  deceptive  negotiation  with  the  French  commander 
until  his  reinforcements  arrived,  and,  as  his  health 
recovered,  his  vigorous  resolution  became  almost 
ferocious.  The  long  white  beard  in  Raphael's  portrait 
of  him  reminds  us  how,  at  this  time,  he  swore  that  he 
would  not  shave  again  until  he  had  driven  the  French 
from    Italy.     Louis   was   now   taking   practical   steps 

'  Priuli  {Diario,  ii.,  102)  says  that  Romans  spoke  of  his  "Ganymedes." 


278    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

toward  the  summoning  of  a  General  Council,  and  the 
temper  of  the  Pope  was  terrible  to  witness.  In  the 
depth  of  winter,  not  yet  wholly  recovered  from  his  long 
fever,  he  rejoined  the  troops,  sharing  the  hardships  of 
camp-life  and  stormily  scolding  his  generals  for  their 
slowness.  He  never  led  troops  on  the  field,  but  he 
interfered  in  the  placing  of  artillery  and  more  than 
once  exposed  himself  to  fire.  At  the  capitulation  of 
Mirandola  he  shocked  his  cardinals  by  ordering  that 
any  foreign  soldiers  found  in  the  town  should  be  put  to 
the  sword. 

He  spent  some  months  thus  passing  from  town  to 
town,  infusing  his  fiery  energy  into  the  troops,  but  his 
successes  and  his  personal  conduct  of  the  war  inflamed 
the  indignation  of  the  French  King.  Louis  not  only 
sent  reinforcements  to  his  army,  but  he,  with  his  ad- 
herent cardinals,  arranged  for  the  holding  of  a  General 
Council  on  Italian  soil.  Perdam  Babylonis  Nomen  ("I 
will  erase  the  very  name  of  Babylon")  was  the  terrible 
motto  he  now  placed  on  his  medals.  In  quick  suc- 
cession the  Pope  learned  that  the  Bentivogli  had  re- 
covered Bologna  and  derisively  broken  into  fragments 
the  magnificent  statue  of  Julius  which  Michael  Angelo 
had  erected:  that  his  favourite  Cardinal  Alidosi  had 
been  assassinated  by  his  (the  Pope's)  nephew  and  com- 
mander the  Duke  of  Urbino;  and  that  Louis  and  Max- 
imilian, with  the  seceded  cardinals,  had  announced  a 
General  Council  of  the  Church  at  Pisa  and  summoned 
Julius  II.  to  appear  before  it. 

The  attendants  who  marched  by  the  Pope's  closed 
litter,  as  he  returned  to  Rome  on  June  26,  151 1,  con- 
cluded from  his  unrestrained  sobs  and  groans  that  his 
power,  if  not  his  life,  approached  its  end.  His  health 
was  ruined  and  his  troops  were  scattered.     But  there 


Julius  II.:  the  Fighting  Pope         279 

was  an  energy  mightier  than  that  of  Hildebrand  in  his 
worn  frame,  and  with  some  improvement  in  his  condi- 
tion he  raised  his  head  once  more.  He  had  in  the  spring 
created  eight  new  cardinals,  to  replace  the  seceders,  and 
he  now  announced  that  a  real  Ecumenical  Council  would 
assemble  at  the  Lateran  on  April  19,  15 12.  That  was 
his  answer  to  Pisa,  and  to  the  Papal  aspirations  of  the 
Cardinal  of  Rouen  and  the  Emperor-elect.  He  again 
fell  dangerously  ill — so  ill  that  his  death  was  confidently 
expected.  Election-intrigue  filled  the  corridors  of  the 
Vatican,  and  a  band  of  democrats  held  a  meeting  in 
the  Capitol  and  decided,  at  his  death,  to  restore  the 
republican  liberty  of  Rome.  In  a  few  weeks  the  terrible 
old  man  rose  from  his  bed,  thin  and  white  but  with 
unbroken  energy,  and  scattered  the  intriguers.  He 
anathematized  the  schismatical  cardinals,  and  an- 
nounced (October  4th)  that  he  had  formed  a  Holy 
League  with  Ferdinand  of  Spain  and  Venice  for  the 
defence  of  the  Church;  Maximilian  was  presently 
induced  to  join  the  League,  and  before  the  end  of  151 1 
Henry  VIII.  was  persuaded,  by  a  promise  of  assistance 
in  his  designs  on  France,  to  give  it  his  adhesion.  Only 
three  months  before  Julius  had  apparently  lain  at  the 
point  of  death,  his  new  possessions  utterly  ruined.  Now 
he  once  more  commanded  the  situation.  The  schis- 
matical Council  of  Pisa,  which  opened  on  November 
1st,  turned  out  a  puny  French  conciliahulum,  with  four- 
teen bishops  and  five  abbots  to  represent  the  imiversal 
Church. 

The  campaign  which  began  in  January  need  not  be 
followed  in  detail.  After  a  series  of  varying  engage- 
ments the  French  won  a  crushing  victory  at  Ravenna, 
and  there  was  panic  at  Rome.  The  cardinals  demanded 
peace  with  France,  but  Giulio  de'  Medici,  cousin  of 


28o    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Cardinal  Giovanni,  who  had  been  captured  by  the 
French,  now  came  to  describe  the  exhausted  condition  of 
the  French  army,  and  JuHus  resolved  to  prosecute  the 
war.  He  opened  his  General  Council  at  the  Lateran 
on  May  3rd,  and  had  at  least  the  satisfaction  of  seeing 
seventy  Italian  bishops  respond  to  his  summons. 
Then,  covering  his  preparations  by  a  pretence  of  con- 
sidering the  terms  which  Louis  XII.  offered  him,  he 
engaged  further  troops,  fired  his  commanders,  and 
induced  Maximilian  to  withdraw  the  four  thousand 
Tirolese  mercenaries  from  the  French  ranks.  In  a  few 
weeks  the  French  were  driven  out  of  Italy,  the  schis- 
matics were  forced  to  transfer  their  discredited  Council 
to  French  soil,  and  the  Pope  found  himself  master  of 
Bologna,  Ravenna,  Rimini,  Cesena,  Parma,  Piacenza, 
and  Reggio.  In  appraising  Julius  as  founder  of  the 
Papal  States  one  must  bear  in  mind  the  history  of 
this  remarkable  period.  In  October,  151 1,  JuHus  was 
stricken  and  apparently  ruined;  by  the  summer  of 
15 12  he  was  master  of  the  richest  provinces  of  Italy. 
But  he  had  not  left  Rome,  and  his  personal  action  at  this 
juncture  was  slight  in  comparison  with  those  tremen- 
dous earlier  exertions  which  had  ended  in  disastrous 
failure. 

Julius  was  far  from  satisfied,  and  his  conduct  in  the 
hour  of  victory  was  at  the  low  political  level  of  the  time. 
He  assisted  the  Medici  to  impose  themselves  again  on 
Florence,  and  the  Sforza  to  recover  Milan.  He  then 
made  a  lamentable  effort  to  secure  Ferrara.  The  Duke 
came  to  Rome,  under  a  safe-conduct  of  the  Papal 
General  Fabrizio  Colonna,  and  of  the  Spanish  ambas- 
sador, to  plead  that  he  had  acted  only  in  honourable 
discharge  of  his  engagements  to  France.  Julius  had 
approved  the  safe-conduct,  but  when  the  Duke  re- 


Julius  II.:  the  Fighting  Pope  281 

fused  to  surrender  his  territory  to  the  Church,  the 
Pope  affected  to  discover  that  he  had  committed  crimes 
not  covered  by  the  safe-conduct  and  detained  him. 
The  Colonna  redeemed  the  credit  of  Italy  by  cutting 
their  way  through  the  Papal  guards  and  restoring 
Alfonso,  after  romantic  adventures,  to  his  duchy. 
When  the  poet  Ariosto  was  afterwards  sent  by  Alfonso 
to  make  peace  with  the  Pope,  he  had  to  fly  for  his  life; 
Julius,  in  one  of  his  now  frequent  outbursts  of  violence, 
threatened  to  have  him  thrown  into  the  sea. 

To  the  end  Julius  pursued  his  tortuous  diplomacy. 
Neither  Spain  nor  Germany  wished  to  see  any  increase  of 
his  power,  and  he  was  forced  to  abandon  his  designs  on 
Ferrara.  He  then  disrupted  his  Holy  League,  and  made 
a  fresh  alliance  with  Maximilian  against  Venice  and  to 
the  disadvantage  of  Spain.  Julius  was  concerned  about 
the  growing  power  of  Spain  in  Italy ;  and  we  shall  hardly 
be  unjust  if  we  suspect  that,  as  Alexander  VI.  had  done, 
he  dreamed  of  adding  Naples  to  the  Papal  dominion. 
But  he  never  entirely  recovered  his  health,  and  his 
great  schemes  were  closed  by  death  on  February  20, 
1 5 13.  He  was  neither  a  great  soldier  nor  a  great  states- 
man. There  is  no  indication  that  his  interference  in 
the  military  operations  was  useful,  and,  as  I  pointed  out, 
the  one  permanently  successful  campaign  was  fought 
while  he  directed  an  ecclesiastical  Council  at  Rome.  In 
the  sphere  of  politics  and  diplomacy  he  relied  on  cunning 
and  deceit  rather  than  statesmanship,  and,  if  he  had 
not  represented  a  spiritual  power  to  which  the  nations 
were  bound  to  return  in  the  end,  he  would  have  been 
mercilessly  crushed.  He  had,  also,  little  ability  to 
organize  such  possessions  as  he  obtained,  and  his  career 
is  marred  by  violent  outbursts  and  acts  of  treachery  and 
cruelty.     It  is  sometimes  said  that  he  was  the  greatest 


282     Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Pope  since  Innocent  III,  One  imagines  the  shade  of 
that  great  spiritual  ruler  shuddering;  and  one  is  dis- 
posed to  agree  with  Guicciardini  that,  if  Julius  was 
great,  a  new  meaning  must  be  put  on  the  word.  He 
had  wonderful  energy,  and  by  good  fortune  his  aim  was 
finally  attained. 

In  view  of  this  strenuous  campaign  for  the  recovery  of 
the  Papal  States,  we  can  expect  only  a  slender  record 
of  strictly  Pontifical  work.  Julius  attended  to  the 
propagation  of  the  faith  in  the  new  lands  beyond 
the  seas,  and  he  impelled  the  Inquisitors  to  check  the 
spread  of  heresy.  That  he  restrained  the  Spanish 
Inquisition,  and  supported  its  exclusion  from  Naples, 
was  not  due  to  humane  feeling,  but  to  its  exorbitant 
claims  of  independent  authority.  He  forbade  duelling, 
and  endowed  a  college  of  singing  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  Papal  Choir.  His  Lateran  Council  was,  of  course, 
a  political  expedient,  but  there  is  evidence  that  when 
death  closed  his  career  Julius  was  turning  more  seriously 
to  plans  of  reform.  In  spite  of  his  own  Bull  against 
simony,  the  Curia  remained  as  corrupt  as  ever,  and 
money  was  raised  in  all  the  evil  ways  known  to  it. 
It  is,  however,  curious  and  creditable  to  have  to  place 
one  great  reform  to  the  merit  of  Julius.  He  passed  so 
drastic  a  decree  against  corruption  at  Papal  elections 
that  the  rivals  who  gathered  in  Rome  after  his  death 
did  not  dare  to  employ  bribery. 

Julius  is  probably  most  deserving  of  esteem  for  his 
artistic  work.  The  literary  parasites  who  swarmed 
about  his  successor  have  associated  the  glory  of  late 
mediaeval  Rome  with  the  name  of  Leo  X.,  but  discrim- 
inating research  is  convincing  historians  that  Leo  did 
not  even  sustain  the  great  work  of  his  predecessor. 
The  bold  scheme  which  Julius  adopted  was  due  to  his 


Julius  II.:  the  Fighting  Pope  283 

artists  rather  than  to  his  own  inspiration,  yet  he  has  the 
distinction — no  mean  distinction  for  one  immersed,  as 
he  was,  in  an  exacting  poHcy — of  reflecting  at  once  the 
vast  ideas  which  were  put  before  him.  The  new  St. 
Peter's  which  he  was  compelled  to  think  of  building  was 
not  intended  at  first  to  be  of  great  dimensions,  but  he 
accepted  Bramante's  design  of  a  church  far  larger  even 
than  the  St.  Peter's  of  today,  and,  in  spite  of  his  costly 
wars,  he  enabled  the  architect  to  employ  2500  workers. 
He  accepted  Bramante's  designs  for  a  new  Vatican  and 
for  the  Cortile  di  Damaso.  He  engaged  Michael  Angelo 
to  carve  a  princely  marble  tomb  for  himself — his  one  great 
luxury — and,  when  his  interest  was  transferred  to  the  less 
selfish  task  of  building  St.  Peter's,  he  set  the  artist  to 
the  execution  of  his  immortal  work  on  the  roof  of  the 
Sistine  Chapel.  Michael  Angelo  made  also,  as  I  have 
noted,  a  great  statue  of  Julius  at  Bologna,  but  this  was 
destroyed  at  the  return  of  the  Bentivogli.  There  were 
many  quarrels  between  the  two  men,  but  Michael 
Angelo  found  in  Julius  a  manliness  and  a  greatness  of 
conception,  if  not  a  feeling  for  art,  the  lack  of  which  he 
bitterly  criticized  in  Leo  X. 

Cristoforo  Romano,  Sansovino,  Perugino,  Signorelli, 
Pinturicchio,  and  other  great  artists  were  enlisted  in  the 
work  of  making  the  ecclesiastical  quarter  of  Rome  the 
artistic  centre  of  the  world.  Some  of  the  finest  of  the 
old  Greek  sculptures  which  were  then  being  sought  in 
the  rubbish  of  mediseval  Italy  were  bought  for  the  Bel- 
videre,  and  painters  of  distinction  were  richly  encour- 
aged. New  frescoes  and  new  tombs  were  ordered  in  the 
churches  of  Rome;  the  walls  and  aqueducts  were 
repaired;  handsome  new  streets  were  laid  out;  and  the 
cardinals  and  wealthier  citizens  were  moved  to  co- 
operate with  the  Pontiff  in  his  plans  for  the  exaltation  of 


284    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Rome.  We  may  deplore  that  the  money  for  these 
plans  was  largely  obtained  by  the  sale  of  spiritual  offices 
and  indulgences,  and  we  must  resent  the  fact  that 
money  obtained  by  these  means  was  diverted  to  the 
purposes  of  war.  But  the  magnificence  of  the  design 
and  the  generosity  with  which  Julius  prosecuted  it  as 
long  as  he  Hved  seem  to  be  a  more  solid  and  en- 
during merit  than  his  good  fortime — for  in  the  decisive 
stage  it  was  little  more — in  recovering  a  rich  dominion 
which  would  but  serve  to  enhance  the  frivolity  of  his 
successor. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

LEO  X.  AND  THE  DANCE  OF  DEATH 

WHEN  Julius  II.  made  his  last  survey  of  the  world 
in  which  he  had  played  so  vigorous  a  part,  he 
must  have  concluded  that  he  had  placed  the  Papacy  on 
a  foimdation  more  solid  than  any  that  had  yet  supported 
it.  The  Conciliar  movement,  its  most  threatening 
enemy  in  the  mind  of  the  Popes,  had  been  discredited 
by  the  failure  of  its  latest  effort  and  by  the  naked 
ambitions  of  those  who  supported  it.  The  princes  of 
the  world  had  proved  less  stubborn  than  in  the  days  of 
the  early  Emperors,  and  the  Papacy  had  now  a  broad 
and  strong  base  of  secular  power.  The  new  culture  had 
been,  to  a  great  extent,  wooed  and  won  by  the  Pope's 
princely  patronage  of  art  and  embellishment  of  Rome; 
and  the  Inquisition,  in  one  form  or  other,  could  silence 
the  intractable.  There  was  still,  among  the  dour  and 
distant  northeners,  much  cavilling  at  the  avarice  and 
luxury  of  Rome,  but,  if  the  succeeding  Popes  used  the 
Lateran  Council  to  ensure  some  measure  of  reform,  it 
would  diminish;  it  had,  in  any  case,  not  yet  proved 
dangerous.  Neither  Julius  nor  any  other  had  the  least 
suspicion  that  the  Papacy  was  within  five  years  of  the 
beginning  of  an  appalling  catastrophe. 

We  have,  however,  seen  that  the  opinions  which  were 
to  bring  about  that  catastrophe  had  long  been  diffused 

285 


286    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

in  Europe,  and  a  particular  conjunction  of  circum- 
stances might  at  any  time  convert  them  into  rebelhous 
action.  For  more  than  a  century,  there  had  been  a 
critical  scrutiny  of  the  bases  of  Papal  power,  and  to  a 
large  extent  the  Papacy  had  escaped  the  consequences 
by  a  greater  liberality  toward  rulers  and  by  sharing 
with  them  the  wealth  it  extracted  from  the  people. 
France  maintained  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  which 
Rome  detested,  and  other  countries  gave  rather  the 
impression  of  federation  than  of  abject  submission  to  a 
spiritual  autocracy.  Moreover,  while  the  pressure  of 
the  central  power  was  eased,  doctrinal  rebellion  seemed 
to  make  little  progress.  Lollardism  was  extinct,  Hus- 
sitism  confined  to  a  sect,  Savonarolism  murdered.  Yet 
the  Reformation  was  coming,  and  we  see  now  that 
Luther  was  but  the  instrument  of  its  deliverance. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  discuss  all  the  causes  of  the 
Reformation,  and  a  few  considerations  will  suffice  for 
my  purpose.  Printing  had  been  invented  and  printed 
sheets  were  being  circulated.  Men  were  now  reading — 
which  provokes  independent  reflection — rather  than 
sitting  at  the  feet  of  oracular  schoolmen.  Among  the 
books  which  poured  out  from  the  press,  moreover,  the 
Bible — in  spite  of  a  popular  fallacy  on  that  subject — 
occupied  an  important  place,  even  in  the  vernacular. 
Further — and  this  was  most  important  of  all — the  last 
great  extension  of  the  Papal  fiscal  system,  the  granting 
of  indulgences  for  money,  was  in  one  important  respect 
based  on  a  novel  speculation  of  the  schoolmen  and 
was  not  supported  by  Biblical  Christianity.  The 
realization  of  this  stimulated  men  to  get  behind  the 
fences  of  Decretals  and  scholastic  speculations,  and  to 
claim  a  reform  which  should  be  something  more  than 
the  substitution  of  a  good  Pope  for  a  bad  Pope.     Finally 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       287 

the  renewed  corruption  of  the  Papal  Court  under  Leo 
X.  set  this  psychological  machinery  in  conscious 
motion. 

Twenty-five  cardinals  were  enclosed  in  the  Sistine 
Chapel  on  March  4th  for  the  election  of  the  new  Pope. 
Wealth  was  now  of  no  direct  avail,  for  all  accepted  the 
Bull  of  Julius  condemning  bribery.  Some  of  the  poorer 
cardinals,  knowing  that  their  votes  were  not  marketable, 
had  tried  to  secure  the  treasure  (about  300,000  ducats) 
left  by  Julius,  but  the  keeper  of  Sant'  Angelo  had  been 
incorruptible.  Yet  we  must  not  emphasize  the  absence 
of  bribery :  there  is  such  a  thing  as  gratitude  for  favours 
to  come.  For  nearly  a  week  the  enclosed  cardinals  dis- 
cussed and  negotiated.  It  is  confidently  stated  that, 
while  the  older  cardinals  were,  as  usual,  divided  in  al- 
legiance to  several  of  their  body,  the  younger  cardinals 
stood  aloof  and  were  secretly  resolved  to  elect  Giovanni 
de'  Medici.  Cardinal  Giovanni  lay  abed  in  his  little 
cell — imagine  the  Sistine  Chapel  containing  thirty-one 
bedrooms — suffering  from  fistula.  A  surgeon  was  with 
him  in  the  Conclave,  and  his  condition  was  unpleasantly 
felt  in  the  sealed  room.  A  close  friend  of  his,  Bernardo 
Dovizo,  or  Bibbiena  as  he  was  commonly  called,  can- 
vassed for  him,  and  assured  the  cardinals  of  his  liberal 
and  grateful  disposition,  his  high  origin,  and  his  peaceful 
intentions.  He  was  only  thirty-seven  years  of  age,  but 
the  older  cardinals  may  have  concluded  that  his  malady 
compensated  for  his  youth.  At  the  first  scrutiny,  on 
March  loth,  he  was  elected,  and  he  took  the  name  of 
Leo  X. 

The  earlier  life  of  Leo  X.  has  been  told  in  the  previous 
chapters.  The  second  son  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent, 
born  on  December  11,  1475,  he  was  thrust  into  the 
ranks  of  the  clergy  at  the  age  of  seven,  he  received  the 


288  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
title  of  cardinal  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  and  he  was  openly- 
admitted  to  the  Sacred  College  two  years  later.  He  had 
received  a  stimulating  education  from  the  Humanist 
scholars  of  Florence,  and  amidst  the  dissipations  of 
Rome  he  remained  a  sober  and  diligent  scholar.  He 
retired  to  Florence  under  Alexander  VI.,  and,  when  his 
family  were  driven  from  power  and  repeatedly  failed 
to  recover  it,  he  travelled  in  Germany,  the  Netherlands, 
and  France.  Under  Julius  H.,  he  found  some  favour 
and  became  Legate  for  Bologna  and  Romagna.  He  was 
captured  by  the  French  at  the  fatal  battle  of  Ravenna, 
but  he  made  his  escape  on  their  retreat  from  Italy, 
and  soon  afterwards  became  the  chief  representative 
of  his  house  on  their  restoration  to  Florence.  His 
public  record  was,  therefore,  slight,  and  his  time  had 
been  mainly  devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  letters  and  the 
enjoyment  of  art,  especially  music.  His  interests  were 
so  well  known  that  on  one  of  the  triumphal  arches 
erected  for  his  coronation  it  was  boldly  announced  that 
Venus  (Alexander)  and  Mars  (JuHus)  had  now  made 
way  for  Minerva;  which  a  more  discerning  neighbour 
had  modified  by  erecting  an  assurance  that  Venus  lived 
for  ever.  It  was,  and  is,  believed  that  his  life  before  he 
became  Pope  was  free  from  irregularity.  In  spite  of 
three  fasts  a  week  and  a  strenuous  devotion  to  the  chase, 
he  was  an  abnormally  fat  man,  and  his  pale,  puffy  face 
was  not  improved  by  his  large  myopic  eyes,  which  saw 
little  without  the  aid  of  a  glass.  But  his  unfailing 
smile,  his  charming  manners,  his  ready  wit,  his  prodigal 
generosity,  and  his  unalterable  love  of  peace  and  sun- 
shine promised  a  genial  contrast  to  the  reign  of  his 
predecessor,  and  Rome  gave  him  a  princely  welcome. 

There  are  three  chief  aspects  of  the  Pontificate  of 
Leo  X.  which  it  is  material  to  consider,  and,  although 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       289 

it  is  difficult  entirely  to  separate  them,  it  is  convenient 
to  attempt  this.  There  is  his  political — or  more  cor- 
rectly his  diplomatic — action,  which,  though,  in  that 
Machiavellian  age,  it  seemed  only  a  degree  worse  than 
was  customary,  impresses  the  modern  mind  as  almost 
revolting  in  its  studied  duplicity.  There  is  his  personal 
life,  which  inspired  the  reformers  with  volumes  of  vi- 
tuperation, while  modern  writers  seem  able  to  regard 
it  without  much  sentiment.  And  there  is  the  Pontifical 
activity  which  culminates  in  the  struggle  with  Luther. 
His  relation  to  mediaeval  art  is  less  important  than 
is  commonly  supposed. 

Mediaeval  Italy  was  no  place  for  a  prince  of  peace,  and 
Leo  soon  found  that,  if  he  were  to  avoid  the  sword,* he 
must  follow  a  crooked  course.  He  sincerely  loathed  the 
clash  of  swords.  He  loved  jewels  and  music  and 
comedies  and  books;  he  wanted  to  spend  the  Papal 
treasury  in  surrounding  himself  with  pretty  things  and 
flashes  of  wit — and  he  thus  spent  the  whole  of  Julius's 
300,000  ducats  in  two  years.  But  France  and  Venice 
thirsted  for  revenge  and  sought  his  support;  while  the 
envoys  of  Milan,  Spain,  England,  and  the  Empire 
claimed  his  blessing,  and  his  ducats,  for  the  opposite 
side.  While,  however,  in  the  actual  condition  of  Italy, 
the  Papal  States  were  safe,  a  victory  of  France  and 
Venice  would  bring  perils.  Leo  secretly  joined  the 
Holy  League  against  France,  and  secretly  paid  for  the 
service  of  45,000  Swiss  mercenaries.  The  policy  turned 
out  well.  France  was  driven  back,  and  the  leaders  of 
the  schismatical  cardinals,  Carvajal  and  Sanseverino, 
came  to  Rome,  and  humbly  accepted  Leo's  obedience. 
France  repudiated  the  schism,  and  Venice,  after  a 
desultory  struggle,  was  pacified. 

Leo  found  some  time  for  domestic  matters,  of  which 
19 


290    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

two  may  be  noted  here.  On  September  23d  (1513)  he 
created  four  cardinals,  of  whom  three  were  relatives  and 
one  a  literary  friend.  Bernardo  Bibbiena  (or  Dovizo) 
had,  as  I  said,  promoted  his  interest  in  the  Conclave, 
and  at  earlier  times,  and  was  an  accomplished  literary 
man;  he  was  also  entirely  devoid  of  moral  sentiment, 
composed  the  most  indecent  comedy  that  was  enacted 
at  the  Vatican,  and  was  a  genius  at  organizing  festivities. 
Innocenzo  Cib6,  son  of  Innocent  VIII. 's  natural  son 
Franceschetto  and  Leo's  sister  Maddalena,  was  a  youth 
who  seemed  eager  to  emulate  the  scandalous  repute  of 
his  father.  Giulio  de'  Medici,  cousin  of  the  Pope,  had 
already  received  a  Papal  dispensation  from  illegitimacy, 
and  the  quiet  and  delicate  youth  was  advanced  a  little 
nearer  to  the  Papacy.  Lorenzo  Pucci,  lastly,  was  quite 
a  distinguished  canonist,  and  a  relative  of  Leo;  he  was 
also  expert  in  pushing  the  sale  of  indulgences  and  very 
solicitous  about  his  own  commission, 

Leo  then  regarded  the  fortunes  of  the  chief  lay 
members  of  his  family.  His  brother  Giuliano,  a  highly 
cultivated  man  of  thirty-four,  was  too  much  softened  by 
vice  and  indulgence  to  carry  out  the  Medici  policy  at 
Florence.  This  policy,  embodied  in  a  paper  of  instruc- 
tions which  there  is  good  reason  to  ascribe  to  Leo 
himself,  was  entrusted  to  the  Pope's  nephew  Lorenzo, 
a  vigorous  young  sportsman.  Giuliano  was  made  a 
Baron  of  Rome  and  commander  of  the  Papal  army — 
Leo  remarking  that  he  trusted  there  would  be  no  de- 
mand upon  his  military  talent — and  it  was  so  confidently 
rumoured  that  the  Pope  proposed  to  make  him  King  of 
Naples  that  Ferdinand  was  alarmed  and  had  to  be 
reassured.  It  is  still  disputed  whether  Leo  really  had 
this  intention,  or  whether  he  merely  proposed  to  make  a 
small   principality  in   central   Italy  for  his  worthless 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       291 

brother ;  nor,  in  view  of  the  secrecy  and  duplicity  of  the 
Pope's  methods,  is  the  point  ever  likely  to  be  settled 
on  a  documentary  basis.  It  seems  consistent  both  with 
the  course  of  events  and  with  Leo's  character  to  sup- 
pose that  he  kept  both  alternatives  in  mind,  but  that 
nepotism  was  not  the  first  principle  of  his  policy :  his 
fundamental  idea  was  the  maintenance  of  his  own 
luxurious  security.^ 

In  this  pleasant  promotion  of  his  friends  and  relatives 
and  their  innumerable  followers,  in  the  prodigal  encour- 
agement of  the  artists,  musicians,  poets,  and  jewellers 
who  flocked  to  Rome  from  all  parts,  Leo  spent  two 
years  which  were  only  slightly  clouded  by  the  rapid 
exhaustion  of  the  Papal  treasury.  Meantime,  however, 
the  political  situation  had  once  more  claimed  his  impa- 
tient attention,  and  we  may  for  the  mom^ent  confine 
ourselves  to  that  interesting  aspect  of  his  work.  Louis, 
disgusted  with  the  Papacy,  approached  Ferdinand  of 
Spain  and  was  prepared  to  abandon  to  him  his  claims 
on  Milan,  Genoa,  and  Naples.  This  prospect  of  the 
enclosure  of  Papal  territory  in  a  Spanish  vice  threw  the 

'  F.  Nitti,  Leo  X.e  la  sua  politica  (1892),  seeks  to  defend  Leo  against 
the  charge  of  excessive  nepotism.  He  strains  the  evidence  at  times,  and 
quite  admits  that  dupUcity  was  the  essential  feature  of  the  Pope's  poHcy. 
See  also  his  Documenti  ed  osservazioni  riguardanti  la  politica  di  Leone  X. 
(1893).  -^  biography  of  Leo  was  written  by  the  contemporary  Bishop 
of  Nocera,  Paolo  Giovio,  but  this  Vita  Leonis  X.  is  the  work  of  a  courtier. 
Guicciardini  {Storia  d' Italia),  Sanuto  (Diarii),  and  Bembo  (Opere)  are 
more  critical,  and  the  letters  of  the  Roman  ambassadors  are  valuable. 
P.  de  Grassis,  J^Iaster  of  Ceremonies  at  the  Papal  Court  under  Julius  and 
Leo,  wrote  a  Diary  of  Leo  X.,  but  there  seems  to  be  some  reluctance  to 
publish  it.  The  work  published  by  Armellini  (11  diario  di  Leone  X.,  1884) 
is  merely  a  discreet  compendium  of  it.  Fabroni's  Leonis  X.  Vita  is  too 
ancient  (1797),  and  The  Medici  Popes  (i9o8)by  H.  M.  Vaughan,  is  an 
excellent  popular  work.  Roscoe's  stately  Life  and  Pontificate  of  Leo  X. 
(1805)  is  too  flattering  to  its  hero  and  is  discredited  in  places  by  more 
recent  research. 


292    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Pope  into  a  fit  of  diplomatic  activity.  He  secretly  ne- 
gotiated with  Venice  and  Florence  and  Ferrara,  and 
sent  a  legate  to  England  to  help  to  reconcile  Henry 
Vin.  with  Louis.  He  trusted  to  induce  these  Powers 
to  form  a  league  with  him  for  the  purpose  of  driving  the 
Spaniards  out  of  Italy,  and  aimed  at  securing  Naples  for 
his  brother.'  In  October  the  French  King  married 
Mary  Tudor,  and  the  Spanish  spectre  was  laid.  But, 
with  the  unvarying  logic  of  Papal  politics,  the  fear  of 
Spain  was  succeeded  by  a  fear  of  France,  and  the  Pope 
had  recourse  to  the  kind  of  diplomacy  which  is  char- 
acteristic of  him,  and  in  which,  we  are  assured,  he 
took  great  pleasure.  He  made  a  secret  treaty  with 
Spain  for  the  defence  of  Italy,  and  a  secret  treaty  of 
alliance  with  Louis  against  Spain.  ^  He  encouraged 
Louis,  who  held  out  to  him  the  prospect  of  Naples,  to 
attack  Italy,  and  secretly  promised  to  assist  Milan 
and  the  Emperor  against  the  French  if  Louis  did  attack 
Italy,  which  he  thought  improbable.  He  thus,  he 
thought,  secured  a  principality  for  Giuliano,  whichever 
side  won.  "When  you  have  made  a  league  with  one 
man,"  he  used  to  say,  "there  is  no  reason  why  you 
should  cease  to  negotiate  with  his  opponent." 

This  policy,  it  is  recorded,  cost  Leo  sleepless  nights, 
though  not  on  account  of  moral  scruples.  Louis  pressed 
him  for  a  definite  alliance  against  Milan,  and  he  tried  to 
evade  it  by  pleading  that  it  was  not  meet  for  Christian 
princes  to  engage  in  warfare  while  the  Turk  threatened 
Europe.  The  death  of  Louis  in  January  (1515)  made 
matters  worse,  as  his  successor,  Francis  I.,  determined 
with  all  the  vigour  and  ambition  of  youth  to  press  the 

'  Sanuto,  Diarii,  xviii. 

'  Guicciardini,  xii.  There  is  a  copy  of  his  Spanish  treaty  in  the  State 
archives  at  Florence. 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       293 

French  claims.  Leo  kept  a  legate  negotiating  with 
Francis,  and  we  learn  from  the  Legate's  letters  that  he 
offered  an  alliance  on  condition  that  Naples  should  be 
surrendered  to  Giuliano.  In  the  meantime  (February 
1st),  he  secretly  approved  of  the  league  of  Germany, 
Spain,  Switzerland,  Milan,  and  Genoa  against  France, 
and  stipulated  that  he  should  have  Parma,  Piacenza, 
Modena,  and  Reggio;  he  would  pay  60,000  ducats  a 
month  to  the  league,  and  would  induce  Henry  VIII. — 
partly  by  making  Wolsey  a  cardinal — to  join  it.  In 
July  he  secretly  signed  the  league,  yet  continued  his 
deceptive  correspondence  with  France.  We  have  still 
the  document  in  which  Leo,  after  joining  the  league, 
offered  an  alliance  to  Francis  on  condition  that  he  re- 
nounced his  claim  to  Parma  and  Piacenza,  made  peace 
with  Spain  with  a  view  to  meeting  the  Turks,  and  sur- 
rendered his  claim  to  Naples  "in  favour  of  the  Holy 
See  or  of  a  third  person  approved  by  the  Holy  See."^ 
During  the  campaign  which  followed,  Leo  wavered 
according  to  the  news  he  received.  When  the  French 
took  Milan,  he  made  peace  with  them;  they  were  to 
respect  the  position  of  the  Medici  at  Florence,  and  Leo 
was  to  renounce  the  Papal  claim  to  Parma  and  Pia- 
cenza. He  had,  however,  a  more  creditable  object 
in  view  than  the  interest  of  his  family.  He  met 
Francis  at  Bologna,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
they  then  agreed  to  substitute  a  Concordat  for  the 

'  The  instruction  is  reproduced  by  Nitti,  p,  6i.  As  the  document 
adds  that  Leo  will  not  allow  any  prince,  "even  were  it  his  own  brother, " 
to  hold  "both  the  head  and  the  tail  of  Italy"  (Milan  and  Naples),  Nitti 
and  Pastor  claim  that  it  shows  that  nepotism  was  not  the  key-note  of 
Leo's  policy.  It  seems  strange  that,  in  view  of  all  his  admitted  duplicity, 
they  can  take  seriously  this  phrase  of  the  Pope's.  We  may  admit, 
however,  that  the  security  of  the  Papal  States  was  the  Pope's  first 
consideration. 


294    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Pragmatic  Sanction  of  1438.  For  the  promise  of  a  tithe 
on  his  clergy,  Francis  surrendered  their  GalHcan  priv- 
ileges, and  became,  as  he  thought,  the  real  ally  of  the 
Pope.  Leo  ordered  the  Swiss  to  refrain  from  attacking 
the  French  in  Milan,  and  listened  approvingly  to  the 
King's  designs  on  Naples.  Within  three  months,  how- 
ever, the  Emperor  Maximilian  led  a  body  of  Swiss 
troops,  in  the  pay  of  Henry  VIII.,  to  an  attack  on  Milan, 
and  Leo  was  summoned  by  Francis  to  dispatch  troops 
in  accordance  with  their  agreement.  Carefully  retard- 
ing the  levy  of  his  troops  so  that  they  should  not  arrive 
in  time,  and  keeping  a  legate  by  the  side  of  Maximilian, 
Leo  awaited  the  result.  The  expedition  failed,  and  he 
sought  favour  with  the  exasperated  Francis  by  revealing 
to  him  that  Henry  VIII.  had  secretly  paid  the  Swiss, 
and  by  sending  once  more  an  insincere  command  that 
the  Swiss  must  not  dare  to  attack  an  ally  of  the  Papacy. 
He  sought  to  retain  the  favour  of  Maximilian  by  remind- 
ing him  that  he  had  sent  him  two  hundred  Papal  horse 
under  Mark  Antonio  Colonna;  and  to  Francis  he  pro- 
tested that  Colonna  had  acted  without  permission. 
He  then  assured  Francis  that  he  had  sent  a  legate  to 
induce  Maximilian  to  make  peace  with  France,  and  he 
gave  secret  instructions  to  the  legate  that  such  a  peace 
would  not  be  to  the  interest  of  the  Papacy. 

This  is  the  admitted  framework  of  that  diplomacy 
which  Roscoe  contrives  to  dress  in  such  opulent  phrases, 
and  it  was  a  policy  that  Leo  never  altered.  His  next 
step  was  to  seize  the  duchy  of  Urbino  for  his  nephew 
Lorenzo:  a  step  which,  after  all  his  apologies.  Dr. 
Pastor  admits  to  have  "something  repulsive  about  it." 
The  Duke  of  Urbino  (nephew  of  Julius  II.)  had,  in  spite 
of  his  feudal  obligations,  refused  to  attack  the  French 
at  the  command  of  the  Pope,  and  seems  to  have  dis- 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       295 

cussed  with  Francis  the  dupHcity  of  the  Pope's  pro- 
cedure. Yet  his  liberality  to  the  Medici  in  the  days 
of  misfortune  had  been  such  that  Giuliano  earnestly 
joined  with  Francis  I.  in  imploring  Leo  to  overlook  his 
conduct.  Leo  harshly  refused,  and,  to  the  disgust  of 
many,  the  duchy  was  subdued  and  given  to  Lorenzo. 
I  may  conclude  this  matter  by  recounting  that  in  15 17 
the  exiled  Duke  recovered  his  territory,  and  the  long 
struggle  for  his  ejection  cost  the  Papal  treasury,  accord- 
ing to  Guicciardini,  800,000  ducats. 

A  fresh  anxiety  clouded  the  Pope's  pleasures  when  he 
heard  that  France,  Spain,  Germany,  and  Switzerland 
had  formed  an  alliance,  and  that  Francis  I.  and  Charles 
V.  (who  succeeded  Ferdinand  on  January  23d)  were 
virtually  to  divide  northern  and  central  Italy  between 
them.  This  project  was  abandoned,  but  in  the  follow- 
ing year  an  even  more  serious  event  alarmed  the  Pope. 
The  younger  cardinals  who  had  pressed  his  election  were 
generally  aggrieved.  Fast  and  luxurious  as  most  of 
them  were,  they  had  expected  a  larger  pecuniary  grati- 
tude on  Leo's  part,  and  they  observed  with  annoyance 
that  his  relatives  and  his  literary  admirers  secured  the 
greater  part  of  his  lavish  gifts.  In  15 17,  one  of  these 
worldly  young  cardinals,  Petrucci,  conceived  a  particu- 
lar animosity  against  Leo,  on  account  of  some  injustice 
done  to  his  brother,  and  there  is  little  room  for  doubt 
that  he  spoke  and  thought  of  having  the  Pope  assassin- 
ated. Whether  or  no  we  trust  the  romantic  story  told 
by  Guicciardini  and  Giovio,  that  the  surgeon  who  at- 
tended the  Pope  was  to  poison  his  wound,  we  can  hardly 
accept  the  opposite  rumour,  that  the  whole  conspiracy 
was  invented  by  the  Pope  or  his  brother  in  order  to 
secure  money.  Petrucci  was  not  offered  the  option  of 
a  fine;  and  Cardinals  Riario  and  Sauli  confessed  that 


296    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

they  knew  of  the  plot.  After  a  dramatic  period  of 
inquiry  and  incrimination  Petrucci  was,  in  spite  of  the 
protests  of  cardinals  and  ambassadors,  strangled  in  his 
prison,  and  the  flesh  of  his  guilty  servants  was  torn 
from  their  bones  with  red-hot  pincers.  Cardinal 
Riario  paid  150,000  ducats  for  his  release,  and  the  less 
wealthy  Cardinal  Sauli  25,000,  Cardinals  Soderini 
and  Castellesi  fled,  when  they  were  impeached,  and 
their  property  and  that  of  Cardinal  Petrucci  was 
seized. 

These  events  caused  the  gravest  scandal  throughout 
Christendom,  Cardinal  Riario  was  the  Dean  of  the 
Sacred  College,  and  many  preferred  to  think  that  the 
plot  was  an  invention  for  the  purpose  of  securing  funds 
rather  than  that  the  cardinals  had  sunk  so  low.  The 
dilemma  was  painful,  but  we  can  have  little  doubt  that 
Leo,  at  least,  was  convinced  of  the  reality  of  the  plot. 
Instead  of  proceeding  with  greater  caution,  however, 
he  went  on  to  give  a  fresh  ground  of  criticism.  In  a 
Consistory  which  he  held  on  June  26th,  he  told  the 
cardinals  that  he  was  going  to  add  no  less  than  twenty- 
seven  members  to  their  college.  Their  stormy  protests 
increased  his  determination,  and  on  July  1st  he  pro- 
moted thirty-one  cardinals.  The  rumour  at  once 
spread  through  Christendom,  and  is  in  substance 
undoubted,  that  most  of  the  new  cardinals  jiaid  large 
sums  of  money  for  the  dignity;  Sanuto  makes  individ- 
ual payments  rise  as  high  as  30,000  ducats.  Some  of 
them  were  men  of  low  character,  and  others  were  either 
related  to,  or  had  lent  money  to,  the  Pope. 

We  may,  however,  conclude  the  political  considera- 
tion before  we  discuss  these  domestic  matters.  Max- 
imilian induced  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  to  elect  his 
grandson  Charles  as  his  successor  to  the  imperial  title. 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       297 

and,  as  a  Bull  of  Julius  II.  enacted  that  the  investiture 
of  the  kingdom  of  Naples  reverted  to  the  Papacy  if  its 
holder  became  King  of  Rome,  the  Pope  was  pressed  to 
give  a  dispensation  from  this  Bull.  Leo  pleaded  that 
his  "honour"  was  at  stake;  but  he  secretly  negotiated 
with  Francis  (who  bitterly  opposed  the  dispensation) 
and  with  Charles,  and  bargained  shamelessly  for  his 
refusal  or  consent.  In  the  end  Francis  (out  of  funds 
raised  in  the  name  of  a  crusade)  gave  Lorenzo  de' 
Medici  100,000  ducats  "for  services  rendered,"  and 
promised  a  further  sum  of  100,000  to  the  Pope.  It  is 
an  equally  undisputed  fact  that  on  January  20,  15 19, 
Leo,  Lorenzo,  and  Francis  entered  into  an  alHance ;  the 
Pope  and  his  nephew  were  to  promote  the  interests  of 
Francis,  and  the  French  King  was  to  protect  the  Papal 
States  and  the  estates  of  the  Medici  family,  and  to  ad- 
mit the  claims  of  the  Church  at  Milan.  It  is,  perhaps, 
the  choicest  example  of  Leo's  diplomacy — -"unparalleled 
double-dealing,"  Dr.  Pastor  calls  it — that  he  secretly 
drew  up  a  similar  treaty  with  Spain  and  signed  it  a  fort- 
night after  he  had  signed  the  preceding  (February  6th) . 
In  the  meantime  Leo  heard  that  Maximilian  had  died 
on  January  12th,  and  he  confronted,  or  evaded,  the 
situation  in  his  distinctive  way.  He  informed  his 
German  legate  that  Charles  was  already  too  powerful, 
and  that  either  Frederic  of  Saxony  (whom  he  wished 
to  induce  to  surrender  Luther)  or  Joachim  of  Branden- 
burg (a  docile  noble)  ought  to  have  the  imperial  title. 
Hearing,  however,  that  these  candidates  had  no  pro- 
spect, he  adopted  Francis  I.  and  urged  him  to  defeat 
Charles.  His  policy  at  this  stage  is  not  wholly  clear, 
and  it  is  possible  that  at  first  he  pitted  Francis  against 
Charles  in  the  hope  of  making  profit  from  one  or  the 
other.     In  time  he  seems  seriously  to  have  adopted 


298    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Francis.  He,  on  March  12th,  offered  the  red  hat  to  the 
Electors  of  Treves  and  Cologne,  and  proposed  (on  the 
14th)  to  make  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence  (a  disreput- 
able prelate)  permanent  legate  for  Germany;  and  he 
then,  on  May  4th,  issued  a  Brief  to  the  effect  that  if 
three  Electors  agreed  in  their  choice  the  election  should 
be  valid.  His  schemes  were  shaken  for  a  moment  by 
the  premature  death  of  Lorenzo,  which  moved  him,  in  a 
nervous  hour,  to  exclaim  that  henceforward  he  be- 
longed, "not  to  the  house  of  Medici,  but  to  the  house  of 
God."  But  his  associates  were  not  kept  long  in  sus- 
pense. He  attempted  to  incorporate  Urbino  in  the 
Papal  States,  and,  when  Francis  objected  that  Urbino 
belonged  to  Lorenzo's  surviving  child  (and  her  French 
mother),  the  Pope  began  to  abandon  France.  He  was 
just  in  time  to  approve  Charles  and  promise  a  dispensa- 
tion in  regard  to  Naples  before  that  prince  was  elected 
to  be  Emperor. 

But  the  consciousness  of  his  long  opposition  to 
Charles  weighed  upon  him,  and  in  September  he  again 
made  a  secret  treaty  with  Francis  I.;  he  would  refuse 
the  crown  of  Naples  to  Charles  and  would  promote 
French  interests  by  secular  and  spiritual  weapons  in 
return  for  the  French  King's  aid  against  Charles  and 
against  "insubordinate  vassals."  Vassals  of  Leo  X. 
cannot  easily  have  kept  pace  with  the  remarkable 
policy  of  their  feudal  lord,  but  we  are  hardly  reconciled 
to  the  Pope's  mingled  greed  and  nepotism.  He  secured 
Perugia  and  some  of  the  smaller  places  in  Ancona  and 
Umbria,  and  made  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  get 
Ferrara.  During  all  this  time,  he  listened  amiably  to 
German  proposals  for  an  alliance,  and  in  the  first  months 
of  1 52 1  he  again  duped  the  two  monarchs.  In  January 
— and  it  was  repeated  in  March  and  April — he  gave  the 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       299 

representatives  of  Charles  a  written  assurance  that  he 
had  no  engagements  to  the  disadvantage  of  that  mon- 
arch and  would  not  incur  any  within  three  months; 
in  the  same  month  (January)  he  agreed  to  secure  for 
Francis,  for  the  purpose  of  an  attack  on  Naples,  a  free 
passage  through  the  Swiss  lines,  and  to  receive  in 
return  Ferrara  and  a  strip  of  Neapolitan  territory. 

By  this  time,  however,  the  shadow  of  Luther  had 
fallen  on  the  Papal  Court.  The  magnitude  of  the 
danger  in  Germany  was  by  no  means  appreciated,  but 
Leo  was  eager  to  get  Luther  to  Rome  and  must  con- 
ciliate the  Emperor.  In  May,  hearing  that  the  French 
were  approaching  the  Swiss  and  the  Duke  of  Ferrara, 
he  formed  an  alliance  with  Charles  and  prepared  to  use 
all  his  forces  to  drive  his  former  ally  out  of  Italy.  The 
campaign  opened  successfully,  but  Leo  did  not  live  to 
see  the  issue  and  profit  by  it.  He  caught  a  chill  as  he 
sat  at  an  open  window  in  November  watching  the 
popular  rejoicing,  and  died  on  December  ist,  at  the  age 
of  forty-two.  Both  the  leading  authorities,  Giovio 
and  Guicciardini,  accept  the  current  belief  that  either 
the  Duke  of  Ferrara  or  the  late  Duke  of  Urbino  had 
had  him  poisoned,  but  it  is  now  generally  recognized 
that  the  recorded  symptoms  of  his  seven  days'  illness 
point  rather  to  malaria. 

This  admitted  career  of  duplicity  will  not  dispose  us 
to  expect  a  domestic  atmosphere  of  virtue  and  piety  at 
the  Vatican,  and  it  is  singular  that  any  historian  has 
affected  to  find  such.  That  Leo  heard  or  said  mass 
daily,  and  was  attentive  to  his  ceremonious  obligations, 
is  not,  in  that  age,  inconsistent  with  impropriety  of 
conduct.  His  lavish  charity  was  a  becoming  part  of  his 
habitual  liberahty,  and  his  weekly  fasts  were  rather 
intended  to  reduce  the  flesh  than  to  subdue  it.     On  the 


300  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
other  hand,  some  of  the  frivolous  remarks  attributed  to 
him  have  not  the  least  authority.  When  the  Venetian 
ambassador  ascribes  to  him  the  saying,  "Let  us  enjoy 
the  Papacy  now  that  God  has  given  it  to  us, "  we  may 
or  may  not  have  a  mere  popular  rumour,  though  the 
phrase  is  at  least  a  correct  expression  of  Leo's  ideal; 
but  that  the  Pope  ever  mockingly  attributed  his  good 
fortune  to  "the  fable  about  Jesus  Christ"  is  not  stated 
until  long  after  his  death,  and  then  only  by  an  English 
controversialist,  the  ex-Carmelite  Bale.  Whether  Leo 
was  or  was  not  addicted  to  sins  of  the  flesh  is  not  a  grave 
matter  of  historical  inquiry,  but  the  evidence  seems  to 
me  conclusive  that,  at  least  in  his  Pontifical  days,  he 
was  irregular.^ 

The  character  of  life  at  the  Vatican  and  in  Rome 
imder  Leo  X.  was,  indeed,  such  as  to  prevent  us  from 
imputing  any  moral  scruples  to  the  Pope.  Leo  spent, 
on  the  lowest  estimate,  five  million  ducats  in  eight 
years,  and  left  debts  which  are  variously  estimated  at 
from  half  a  million  to  a  million  ducats.  He  must  have 
spent  nearly  £300,000  per  year,  and  in  order  to  make  his 
official  income  of  about  400,000  ducats  meet  this  strain 

'  Dr.  Pastor  (viii.,  81)  is  here  less  candid  than  usual.  He  says  that 
"Giovio  passes  over  the  whole  truth  of  the  accusations  brought  against 
the  moral  conduct  of  Leo  X.,"  whereas  the  Bishop  of  Nocera  devotes 
several  very  curious  pages  to  the  subject  (lib.  iv.,  pp.  96-99  in  the  1551 
edition  of  the  Vila  Leonis  X.)  and  ends  with  a  reminder  that  we  can 
never  be  quite  sure  about  the  secrets  of  the  chamber  and  an  assurance 
that  Leo  was  at  all  events  less  guilty  than  other  Italian  princes.  The 
courtly  writer  seems  to  me  convinced  that  Leo  was  addicted  to  un- 
natural vice.  Vaughan,  on  the  other  hand,  is  wrong  in  saying  that 
Giovio  alone  mentioned  these  vices.  Guicciardini  (lib.  xvi.,  c.v.,  p.  254, 
in  the  1832  edition  of  the  Sloria  d' Italia),  in  the  course  of  a  sober  char- 
acterization of  Leo,  says  that  he  was  generally  believed  to  be  chaste 
before  his  election,  but  he  was  "afterwards  found  to  be  excessively 
devoted  to  pleasures  which  cannot  be  called  decent." 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       301 

he  created  and  sold  superfluous  offices — they  were 
estimated  at  2150  at  this  death, — pressed  the  sale  of 
indulgences  and  the  exaction  of  fees  and  first-fruits,  and 
borrowed  large  sums  at  exorbitant  rates  of  usury; 
several  of  his  bankers  and  friends  were  ruined  at  his 
death.  A  very  large  proportion  of  this  money  went  in 
gifts  to  literary  men  and  scholars.  Leo  was  a  royal 
spendthrift  of  the  most  benevolent  and  thoughtless 
nature.  All  the  scribblers  of  Italy  flocked  to  Rome,  and 
money  was  poured  out  without  discrimination  as  long 
as  it  lasted.  Yet  letters  and  scholarship  actually 
decayed  owing  to  the  recklessness  of  the  payments. 
"The  splendour  of  the  Leonine  age,  so  often  and  so 
much  belauded,  is  in  many  respects  more  apparent  than 
real, "  says  Dr.  Pastor,  who  has  several  valuable  chap- 
ters on  Leo's  relation  to  letters  and  art.  The  Roman 
University,  which  the  Pope  at  first  supported  with  great 
liberality,  was  suffered  to  decay,  and  great  artists  were 
not  always  encouraged.  Ariosto  was  treated  harshly, 
and,  while  Rafael  and  his  pupils  were  richly  employed, 
Michael  Angelo  was  little  used.  Leo  did  not  adequately 
appreciate  sculpture  or  architecture,  and  even  the 
building  of  St.  Peter's  made  very  little  progress  during 
his  Pontificate.  It  is  true  that  the  state  of  the  Papal 
finances  was  the  chief  reason  for  the  neglect  of  the  great 
architectural  and  educational  plans  of  his  predecessors. 
The  check  to  the  sale  of  indulgences —  brought  about  by 
Cardinal  Ximenes  in  Spain  as  well  as  by  Luther  in 
Germany — was  felt  severely  at  Rome.'  But  we  read 
that  to  the  end  Leo  spent  prodigious  sums  on  musicians, 
decorators,  goldsmiths,  and  jewellers.      An  inventory 

'  It  is  sometimes  pointed  out,  rather  in  the  way  of  merit,  that  Leo 
received  less  than  some  of  his  predecessors  by  the  issue  of  indulgences. 
It  was  not  from  want  of  will  on  his  part. 


302    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

in   the  Vatican  archives  values  at  204,655  ducats  the 
jewels  he  left  behind. 

It  was,  in  fact,  not  so  much  the  discriminating  pro- 
motion of  art  and  culture  as  a  princely  luxuriousness 
that  absorbed  Leo's  funds.  He  was  temperate  at 
table.  The  cardinals  and  wealthier  Romans  continued 
to  enjoy  the  senselessly  rich  banquets  which  they  seem 
to  have  copied  from  the  most  decadent  pages  of  Roman 
history.  Cardinal  Cornaro  is  noted  as  giving  a  dinner 
of  sixty-five  courses  on  silver  dishes.  Banker  Chigi,  a 
useful  friend  of  Leo,  had  his  valuable  plate  thrown  into 
the  river  after  one  choice  banquet ;  and  on  the  occasion 
of  his  marriage  with  his  mistress  (whose  finger  was  held 
by  Leo  to  receive  the  ring)  he  brought  luxuries,  even 
live  fish,  from  the  ends  of  Europe.  Banker  Strozzi 
gave  rival  banquets,  at  which  cardinals  fraternized  with 
courtesans.  Leo  approved,  and  sometimes  attended, 
these  banquets  (at  Chigi's  palace),  but  was  personally 
temperate.  He  had  only  one  meal  each  day,  and  fasting 
fare  on  three  days  in  each  week,  but  he  spent  immense 
sums  on  musicians  and  trinket-makers,  and  many  of  his 
pleasures  were  in  the  grossest  taste  of  the  time.  Men 
of  prodigious  appetite — one  of  them  a  Dominican  friar 
— were  brought  to  his  table  to  amuse  him  and  his  guests 
by  their  incredible  gluttony.  The  Pope  bandied  verses 
with  half-drunken  poetasters  and  patronized  the  coars- 
est buffoons  as  well  as  the  keenest  wits.  When  he  went 
to  his  country  house  at  Alagliana  for  a  few  weeks'  hunt- 
ing— in  which  he  displayed  extraordinary  vigour — he 
took  a  troop  of  his  poets,  buffoons,  musicians,  and  other 
parasites.  At  Carnival  time  he  entered  into  the  wild 
gaiety  of  Rome;  and  comedies  of  the  most  licentious 
character  were  staged  before  him.  Ariosto's  Suppositi 
(in  which  Cardinal  Cib6  took  a  part),   Machiavelli's 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       303 

Mandragola,  and  Bibbiena's  Calandria  alternated  with 
Terence  and  Plautus.  The  Calandria,  written  by 
Cardinal  Bibbiena,  Leo's  chief  favourite,  the  frescoes  of 
whose  bathroom  seem  to  have  been  like  those  on 
certain  rooms  in  Pompeii  today,  is  a  comedy  of  thin 
wit  and  unrestrained  license;  the  Pope  had  it  pre- 
sented in  the  Vatican  for  the  entertainment  of  Isa- 
bella d'Este. 

Such  was  the  Pope  who  presided  over  the  Lateran 
Council  for  the  reform  of  the  Church,  and  the  historian 
will  hardly  be  expected  to  enlarge  at  any  length  on  its 
labours.  Julius  had  initiated  the  council  in  order  to 
checkmate  France  and  the  schismatical  cardinals,  and 
it  continued  its  thinly  attended  sittings,  at  wide  inter- 
vals, for  four  years.  Some  seventy  or  eighty  Italian 
bishops  attended,  and  they  issued  some  admirable 
counsels  to  the  clergy  to  improve  their  lives,  condemned 
heretical  writings,  and  voiced  the  sincere  wish  that  some 
Christian  prince  would  arrest  the  advance  of  the  Turks. 
A  committee  of  the  council  drew  up  a  stringent  and 
comprehensive  scheme  for  the  reform  of  Church-abuses, 
but  this  was  lost  amid  the  vehement  wrangles  of  monks, 
bishops,  and  cardinals.  In  the  end  (15 14)  a  very  slender 
reform-bill  was  issued ;  nor  were  the  clergy  disposed  to 
comply  with  this  when  they  noticed  that,  in  the  fol- 
lowing year,  Leo  himself  bestowed  a  bishopric,  and  soon 
afterwards  the  cardinalate,  upon  the  boy-son  of  Em- 
manuel of  Portugal,  and  granted  to  the  father  a  large 
share  of  the  proceeds  of  the  issue  of  indulgences.  The 
council  also  forbade  the  printing  of  books  without 
approbation,  and  encouraged  the  spread  of  banks  or 
pawn-shops  (Monti  di  Pieta)  for  the  poor.  On  March 
16,  15 17,  Leo,  in  spite  of  the  murmurs  of  the  reformers 
and  the  revolt  in  Germany,   brought  to  a  close  his 


304    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

almost  futile  council.  He  had  no  desire  whatever  for 
reform,  and  even  the  measures  which  were  passed  were 
not  enforced.  The  reforming  prelates  were  deeply 
saddened  by  his  levity,  and,  before  the  close  of  the 
council,  Gianfrancesco  Pico  della  Mirandola  drew  up  in 
their  name  an  appalHng  indictment  of  the  state  of  the 
Church  and  predicted  that  the  refusal  to  remedy  it 
would  bring  on  them  a  heavy  judgment. 

The  one  work  of  the  Council  in  which  the  Pope  took 
a  lively  interest  was  the  granting  of  a  Concordat  to 
France.  The  Gallican  sentiments  of  the  French  pre- 
lates and  doctors  had  been  embodied  in  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction  (1438),  and  Rome  had  not  ceased  to  protest 
against  this  cession  to  local  councils  of  the  powers  it 
claimed.  By  the  Concordat  of  15 16  the  King  and  the 
Pope  virtually  divided  these  powers  between  them; 
the  King  had  the  right  of  nomination  to  bishoprics 
and  abbeys,  the  Pope  received  the  "first-fruits"  (An- 
nates) .  The  Concordat  was  signed  by  Leo  on  Septem- 
ber 16,  15 1 6,  but  was  not  published  until  15 18,  when 
it  caused  fierce  indignation  at  the  universities  and 
among  the  clergy. 

Leo  had  dismissed  the  reformers  of  the  Lateran 
Council,  and  in  the  spring  of  15 17,  the  very  year  in 
which  Martin  Luther  nailed  his  challenge  on  the  door  of 
the  castle-church  at  Wittenberg,  turned  with  relief  to 
his  corrupt  court.  There  had,  as  we  saw,  long  been  an 
outcry  in  Germany  against  the  corruption  of  a  very  large 
proportion  of  the  clergy  and  against  the  Papal  fiscal 
system,  yet  Leo  had  light-heartedly  maintained  the 
disorders.  In  15 14  he  had,  in  order  to  secure  the  votes 
of  two  Electors,  conferred  the  Archbishopric  of  Mayence 
upon  a  young  and  worldly  noble,  Albert  of  Branden- 
burg, and  had  (for  a  payment  of  24,000  ducats)  per- 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       305 

mitted  him  still  to  retain  the  sees  of  Magdeburg  and 
Halberstadt.  In  order  to  recover  the  24,000  ducats, 
which  he  had  borrowed  on  the  security  of  a  share  in  the 
sale  of  indulgences,  the  unscrupulous  prelate  pressed  the 
traffic  eagerly,  and  some  of  the  more  enlightened  Ger- 
man clergy  protested.  There  were  already  princes, 
such  as  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  who  refused  to  allow 
the  Papal  envoys  in  their  dominions,  and  there  were 
writers,  like  Ulrich  von  Hutten,  who  violently  assailed 
their  procedure.  Leo,  however,  failed  to  appreciate 
the  gravity  of  the  situation  and  proposed  to  raise  large 
sums,  ostensibly  for  the  building  of  St.  Peter's,  by 
granting  indulgences, 

I  have  already  explained  that,  though  John  XXIII. 
undoubtedly  sold  absolution  "from  guilt  and  from 
penalty, "  as  the  Council  of  Constance  established,  the 
indulgence  was,  properly  speaking,  a  remission  of  the 
punishment  due  to  sins  which  had  been  duly  confessed. 
In  earlier  Papal  practice,  the  indulgence  was  the  com- 
mutation into  a  money-payment  of  the  penance  for 
sin  imposed  by  the  Church,  but,  as  the  doctrine  of  Pur- 
gatory developed,  the  indulgence  came  to  be  regarded 
as  a  remission  of  the  punishment  due  in  Purgatory. 
Two  questions  had  then  arisen  on  which  the  schoolmen 
had  exercised  their  ingenuity:  on  what  ground  could 
the  Church  claim  to  remit  this  punishment,  and  whether 
the' indulgence  could  be  extended  to  the  dead  who  were 
actually  suffering  in  Purgatory?  The  schoolmen  found 
a  satisfactory  answer  to  both  questions.  Then  Boni- 
face IX.  decreed  that  an  indulgence  might  be  earned  by 
a  payment  of  money  to  the  Church  (the  price  of  a  voy- 
age to  Rome),  and  the  way  was  opened  for  the  later 
abuse.  In  their  commercial  zeal  the  Papal  envoys  and 
preachers  imdoubtedly  represented  that  souls  were  dc- 


3o6    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

livered  from  the  fire  of  Purgatory  when  the  coin  rang 
in  their  collecting  boxes. 

The  Dominican  monk  Tetzel,  who  in  15 17  was  sent 
to  preach  the  indulgence  as  Albert  of  Brandenburg's 
sub-commissary,  was  more  zealous  than  scrupulous  in 
his  representations,  and  people  of  Wittenberg,  who  had 
crossed  the  frontier  in  order  to  profit  by  the  indulgence, 
came  home  with  unedifying  reports  of  his  sermons. 
Martin  Luther,  then  a  professor  at  the  Wittenberg 
University,  heard  these  reports  with  disdain.  There 
was  no  defined  doctrine  of  the  Church  on  the  subject, 
and  more  than  one  divine  had  felt,  like  Luther,  that 
this  apparent  trafBc  was  as  enervating  to  real  piety  as 
it  was  in  itself  distasteful.  A  man  of  intense  and  stormy 
spiritual  experience,  he  sternly  combated  all  that  seemed 
to  encourage  "sloth"  in  religious  life;  his  was  the  more 
arduous  religion  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Augustine.  Con- 
scious, therefore,  that  the  whole  practice  was  based  on 
comparatively  recent  speculations  of  the  schoolmen, 
which  he  had  a  right  to  dispute,  he  challenged  Tetzel 
to  justify  his  "lying  fables  and  empty  promises."  A 
war  of  pamphlets  ensued,  and,  as  his  opponents  natu- 
rally appealed  to  the  language  in  which  the  Popes  had 
announced  indulgences,  Luther  was  compelled  to  slight 
the  words  of  the  Popes  and  appeal  to  the  declarations 
of  Councils  and  the  teaching  of  Scripture.  He  was 
still  orthodox;  the  language  he  used  had  been  heard  in 
the  Church  for  two  centuries,  and  in  that  age  one  would 
as  soon  have  thought  of  claiming  impeccability  as  in- 
fallibility for  the  Popes. 

At  the  beginning  of  15 18  it  was  reported  to  Rome  that 
the  agitation  raised  by  the  robust  professor  was  seriously 
interfering  with  the  indulgences,  and  Leo,  encouraged 
by  the  angry  Dominicans,  directed  his  superiors  to  re- 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       307 

strain  him.  When  they  failed,  he  summoned  Luther 
to  Rome.  The  monk,  knowing  how  such  trials  ended 
at  Rome,  appealed  to  the  Elector  of  Saxony  and  to 
Maximilian.  The  appeal  to  the  Emperor,  however, 
fell  at  a  time  when  the  Papal  favour  was  sought  for 
Charles,  and  Maximilian  encouraged  the  Pope  to  take 
action.  Leo  ordered  Luther  to  present  himself  at  once 
before  the  Papal  Legate  and  prepare  for  trial  at  Rome. 
On  the  other  hand  Frederic  of  Saxony  insisted  that 
Luther  should  be  examined  in  Germany,  and  the  Pope 
dreaded  to  irritate  an  Elector  on  the  eve  of  an  imperial 
election.  Legate  Cajetan  was  therefore  empowered  to 
see  the  rebel  at  Augsburg,  and  a  series  of  futile  confer- 
ences took  place  on  October  I2th-I4th.  Luther  wished 
to  argue  and  justify  his  thesis:  Cajetan  was  instructed 
merely  to  demand  his  submission.  Luther  insisted 
that  he  should  be  tried  by  the  learned  doctors  of  Basle, 
Freiburg,  Louvain,  and  Paris:  the  legate  was  charged 
to  assert  the  Papal  authority.  On  October  i8th 
Luther  departed  in  disgust  for  Wittenberg;  and  his 
temper  was  not  improved  by  the  discovery  that  Leo 
had,  on  August  23d,  directed  the  legate,  in  case  of 
obstinacy,  to  declare  him  heretical.  He  appealed  to  a 
General  Council. 

Luther  was  still  within  the  limits  of  orthodox  senti- 
ment and  practice,  and  the  protection  of  the  Elector 
embarrassed  the  Pope.  A  more  diplomatic  envoy,  Karl 
von  Militz,  a  Papal  chamberlain,  was  sent  to  Germany, 
and  some  months  were  spent  in  amiable  correspondence. 
Luther  promised  to  be  silent  if  his  opponents  would  keep 
silence,  and  wrote  a  respectful  letter  to  the  Pope;  to 
which  Leo  made  a  gracious  reply.  But  the  truce  was 
little  more  than  a  diplomatic  regard  for  Papal  interests 
during  the  period  of  the  imperial  election,  and  the  policy 


3o8    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

of  silence  soon  proved  impossible  for  both  sides.  Ul- 
rich  von  Hutten  and  other  critics  encouraged  Luther 
to  assail  the  Papal  authority,  and  the  exaggerations 
of  his  opponents  reacted  on  the  growth  of  his  mind. 
By  the  end  of  15 19  he  seems  to  have  concluded,  with 
some  firmness,  that  the  Papal  system  was  an  unwar- 
ranted addition  to  primitive  Christianity,  and  a  formid- 
able movement  supported  his  ideas. 

In  January  (1520)  Luther's  case  was  submitted  to  a 
commission  of  theologians  at  Rome,  and  the  Elector  was 
summoned  to  compel  him  to  retract.  Frederic  re- 
fused, and  in  June  Leo  signed  the  Bull  Exsurge  Domine; 
Luther  was  to  be  excommunicated  if  he  did  not  submit 
within  sixty  days,  and  the  secular  authorities  would 
incur  an  interdict  if  they  did  not  surrender  him.  It 
is  not  of  material  interest  to  quarrel  w4th  the  Pope's 
procedure:  to  point  out  that  the  disappointed  Cajetan 
was  one  of  the  heads  of  the  commission  of  inquiry,  and 
that  Luther's  vehement  opponent  Eck  was  one  of  the 
two  legates  entrusted  with  the  publication  of  the  Bull. 
Rome  demanded  submission;  and,  if  Luther  had  sub- 
mitted, some  other  German  would  before  long  have 
instituted  the  Reformation.  Europe  was  ripe  for 
schism,  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  even  a  reform 
of  the  Church  would  have  long  prevented  the  growth  of 
a  body  of  men  holding  the  Reformers'  view  of  the  bases 
of  Papal  authority.  On  December  loth  (1520)  Luther 
pubhcly  burned  the  Bull.  Even  this  act  was  not  with- 
out orthodox  precedent,  but  Luther  was  constantly 
advancing.  He  was  summoned  before  the  Diet  of 
Worms  in  April  (152 1),  and  he  then  stated  that  the  word 
of  neither  Popes  nor  Councils  would  condemn  him;  he 
must  be  judged  by  reason  and  Scripture.  But  the 
political  situation,  which  casts  its  shadow  throughout 


Leo  X.  and  the  Dance  of  Death       309 

on  the  development,  was  now  modified.  Charles  ob- 
tained his  wish  of  an  alliance  with  the  Papacy  against 
France,  This  alliance  was  signed  on  May  8th:  on  the 
12th  the  Diet  issued  the  Edict  of  Worms.  Luther  was, 
in  accordance  with  the  Pope's  second  Bull, '  declared  a 
heretic.  He  retreated  to  the  Wartburg  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Frederic,  and  the  gravest  phase  of  the 
struggle  opened.'' 

Leo  died  in  December,  as  I  have  stated,  leaving  to  his 
successor  the  terrible  legacy  of  his  frivolity  in  face  of  a 
grave  calamity.  In  his  last  two  years  he  apprehended, 
to  some  extent,  the  magnitude  of  the  German  trouble, 
but  he  plainly  proposed  to  answer  the  just  demand  of 
reform  only  by  the  burning  of  a  few  heretics.  His 
entirely  dishonourable  diplomacy  and  his  costly  indul- 
gence of  tastes  which  ill  befitted  a  successor  of  Leo  L 
imposed  the  last  unendurable  burden  on  the  patience  of 
Europe.  For  him  the  Papacy  was  a  principality,  and 
the  religious  nature  of  its  financial  sources  makes  more 
contemptible  the  use  to  which  he  put  his  wealth.  Even 
that  artistic  splendour  which  casts  a  glow  over  the 
Papacy  before  the  breaking  of  the  great  storm  owed 
to  him  comparatively  little.  The  middle  or  secular 
phase  of  the  development  of  the  Papacy  came  to  an  end 
in  the  tawdry  luxuries  and  unscrupulous  measures  of  a 
Pope  who  has  been  treated  with  singular  favour  at  the 
bar  of  Catholic  history. 

'  In  Cosna  Domini,  March  28th. 

» The  situation  in  England  does  not  call  for  consideration  in  this 
chapter.  Henry  VIII.  wrote  against  Luther  and,  in  presenting  his 
book  to  the  Pope,  requested  a  title  analogous  to  that  of  "the  most 
Catholic  King."  By  a  Bull  of  October  26,  1521,  Henry  received  the 
title  of  "Defender  of  the  Faith,"  which  his  successors  retain. 


CHAPTER  XV 

PAUL  III.  AND  THE  COUNTER-REFORMATION 

THE  period  immediately  following  the  death  of  Leo 
X.  is  known  as  that  of  the  Counter- Reformation. 
The  name  which  has  clung  to  the  great  religious  schism 
of  the  sixteenth  century  still  indicates  how  essentially 
it  was,  in  its  origin,  a  protest  against  the  corruption  of 
the  mediceval  Church.  The  reform  of  dogma  was  an 
afterthought;  and  the  Reformation  would  probably 
have  proved  one  more  futile  and  academic  criticism  of 
the  mediaeval  growth  of  doctrine  if  it  had  not  primarily 
appealed  to  the  very  general  resentment  against  the 
practices  of  the  Curia  and  contempt  for  the  unworthy 
lives  of  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  clergy  and  regulars. 
The  situation,  indeed,  offers  a  romantic  aspect  to  the 
historian.  If  a  strong  and  entirely  religious  man,  like 
Cardinal  Carafa,  had  succeeded  Leo  X.,  it  might  have 
been  possible,  by  a  notable  improvement  in  practice, 
to  disarm  a  very  effective  proportion  of  the  followers 
of  the  Reformers  and  thus  to  put  back  for  a  century  or 
two  the  doctrinal  revision.  Unhappily  for  the  Papacy, 
Leo  X.  had  filled  the  Sacred  College  with  men  of  his 
own  disposition,  and  thirty  years  were  wasted  in  fruit- 
less efforts  at  compromise.  In  those  thirty  years,  the 
hesitating  criticisms  of  Luther  crystalHzed  into  a  settled 
creed  which  no  persuasion  could  dissolve  and  no  per- 
secution could  obliterate. 

310 


Paul  III.  and  the  Counter-Reformation    311 

Hadrian  VI.,  who  followed  Leo,  spent  two  unhappy 
years  (152 1-3)  in  a  pitiable  and  wholly  vain  attempt 
to  save  the  authority  of  the  Popes  in  northern  Europe. 
Sprung  from  a  pious  working-class  family  of  the  Low- 
lands, and  retaining  his  simple  tastes  and  stern  religious 
idealism  in  the  evil  atmosphere  of  the  higher  clergy,  he 
sincerely  resented  the  vices  and  frivolity  of  the  car- 
dinals, Rome  itself  now  ridiculed  so  fiercely  the  con- 
trast between  their  pretensions  and  their  lives  that  the 
worldly  cardinals  were  imable  to  put  into  power  a  man 
like  Leo  X.,  and  the  learned,  venerable,  and  more  or 
less  disdained  Hadrian  VI.  shuddered  to  find  himself 
at  the  helm  on  so  stormy  a  sea.  He  was  not  the  type 
of  man  to  save  the  Church.  With  simple  fidelity,  he 
at  once  made  it  clear  that  the  debased  policy  of  his 
predecessor  was  abandoned ;  but  he  had  not  the  strength 
to  control  the  crowd  of  discontented  cardinals  and 
prelates,  or  to  frame  and  carry  through  a  consistent 
scheme  of  reform.  He  was  concerned,  too,  about  the 
financial  loss  which  v/ould  be  caused  by  a  thorough 
reform,  and  the  traffic  in  benefices  and  indulgences  was 
merely  moderated  instead  of  being  abolished.  The  cur- 
tailment was  in  itself  a  confession  that  the  system  was 
corrupt,  and  the  Reformers  scoffed  at  Hadrian's  invi- 
tation to  return  on  such  a  basis,  while  orthodox  Cath- 
olics deplored  the  candour  of  the  admission.  Between 
these  antagonistic  and  weighty  forces  the  slender 
energy  of  the  well  meaning  Pontiff  was  exhausted  in 
two  years. 

The  Pontificate  of  Clement  VII.  (1523-34)  was  a 
compromise ;  he  was  a  Medicean  Pope  (Giuliode'  Medici), 
a  patron  of  art  and  letters,  but  a  man  of  sober  taste 
and  regular  life.  It  was  a  compromise,  too,  between 
a  keen  intelligence  and  a  flabby  will — a  sagacious  per- 


312    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

ception  of  the  danger  and  a  complete  lack  of  the  virility 
needed  to  avert  it — and  eleven  further  years  of  impo- 
tence permitted  the  Reformation  to  take  deep  and 
indestructible  root  in  Germany.  Clement  VII.  was, 
in  fact,  largely  absorbed  in  the  unending  political 
struggle.  After  some  vacillation  he  allied  himself 
with  France  against  Charles  V.,  and  Charles  won. 
Rome  had  to  endure  one  of  the  most  cruel  and  most 
prolonged  pillages  in  its  history,  and  the  Pope  was  for 
seven  months  imprisoned  in  Sant'  Angelo.  He  made 
peace  with  Charles,  but  he  had  little  satisfaction  in 
contemplating  the  imperial  shadow  which  lay  over 
fallen  Italy,  while  the  Turks  came  ever  nearer  and  no 
Christian  monarch  would  advance  against  them.  In 
these  circumstances.  Protestantism  became  a  creed 
and  spread  over  the  north.  Henry  VIII.  married 
Anne  Boleyn  and  became  the  "defender"  of  a  new  faith ; 
and  the  revolt  spread  to  Switzerland  and  Scandinavia. 
The  scanty  measures  of  reform  passed  by  Clement 
were  regarded  with  disdain  by  the  dissenters,  and  the 
artistic  Renaissance  itself  never  recovered  from  the 
sack  of  Rome  and  the  overrunning  of  Italy.  It  was 
left  to  the  founders  of  new  religious  congregations, 
especially  the  Oratorians,  Theatines,  and  Bamabites, 
and  to  the  reformers  of  the  older  orders,  to  lay  the 
foundations  of  the  Counter- Reformation. 

Clement  died  on  September  25,  1534,  and  the  College 
of  Cardinals,  which  had  almost  become  the  curse  of  the 
Church,  met  to  elect  a  successor.  Few  of  these  cardinals, 
even  now,  grasped  with  any  intelligence  the  grave  situ- 
ation of  their  Church.  It  was,  indeed,  feared  that, 
while  the  reform  was  spreading  rapidly  in  the  north, 
the  Conclave  would  be  wrecked  by  the  conflict  of  the 
French  and  Imperialist  partisans.     The  struggle  was 


Paul  III.  and  the  Counter-Reformation    313 

so  menacing  that  a  politically  neutral  cardinal  was 
forced  upon  the  College,  and  the  graver  need  of  the 
Church — the  need  of  a  Pontiff  of  the  most  sincere  and 
spontaneous  religion,  as  well  as  of  large  mind  and 
inflexible  will — was  almost  unnoticed. 

Alessandro  Farnese,  who  now  became  Paul  III.,^ 
was  a  man  of  high  intelligence,  fine  culture,  and  great 
will-power;  but  he  had  neither  the  immaculate  record 
and  deep  piety  which  were  needed  to  impress  the  Re- 
formers nor  the  political  decision  which  might  have 
compensated  for  these  defects.  However  much  the 
historian  may  appreciate  the  difficulties  of  the  Papacy, 
he  cannot  but  recognize  that  the  idea  of  compromising 
with  the  Reformers  had  at  least  since  1520  been  futile. 
Paul  III.  had,  it  is  true,  no  idea  of  compromise:  the 
dissenters  were  to  surrender  every  doctrinal  and  disci- 
plinary claim,  or  to  be  extinguished.  The  great  Euro- 
pean schism  could  now  have  been  remedied  by  no  man. 
But  a  reform  of  the  Church  on  other  than  doctrinal 
matters  might  have  done  much  to  arrest  the  spread  of 
Protestantism,  and  on  this  Paul  compromised.  His 
policy  was  a  reflection  of  his  personality;  he  was  a  son 
of  the  Renaissance  Church,  and  feebly — in  spite  of  his 
admitted  strength  of  will — he  endeavoured  to  retain 
certain  pleasant  features  of  the  vicious  ancien  regime 
with  which  to  soften  the  asperity  of  the  new  ideal 
which  was  forced  upon  him.     He  was  in  a  sense  a  Papal 

Louis  xvni. 

We  remember  Paul  as  the  brother  of  Alexander  VI's 
doll-like  mistress,  Giulia  Farnese.     Born  on  February 

'  For  the  valuable  letters  of  the  Italian  ambassadors  at  the  time  of  the 
Conclave  see  L'Elezione  del  Papa  Paolo  III.  (1907)  by  P.  Accame.  An 
almost  contemporary  biography  of  Paul  is  given  in  the  VilcB  et  Res 
GestcB  Romanorum  Pontificum  of  Ciaconius. 


314    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

29,  1468,  he  had  received  early  instruction  in  the  new 
culture  from  Pomponio  Leto  at  Rome,  and  had  spent 
his  youth  in  that  seminary  of  the  Humanists,  the 
splendid  palace  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  at  Florence,  and 
then  at  Pisa  University.  His  wealth  was  far  inferior 
to  the  nobility  of  his  descent,  and  it  was  not  until  his 
young  sister  had  attracted  the  eye  of  the  voluptuous 
Pope  that  he  was  promoted  to  the  cardinalate  (Sep- 
tember 20,  1493).  In  1502,  he  was  appointed  legate 
for  the  March  of  Ancona,  and  the  more  comfortable 
establishment  he  could  now  afford  to  maintain  included 
a  mistress.  Four  children — Pier  Luigi,  Paolo,  Cos- 
tanza,  and  Ranuccio — were  born  in  his  palace  between 
1502  and  1509;  and  the  eldest  son  and  Costanza  were 
familiar  figures  in  Roman  society  during  his  later 
Pontificate. 

The  more  minute  inquirer  will  find  the  documents 
transcribed  from  the  Vatican  archives,  relating  to  these 
children,  in  Pastor. '  His  mistress  died  at  an  early  age 
in  1513,  and  Alessandro  (now  forty-five  years  old)  is 
described  as  moderating  his  irregularities  and  as  de- 
voting some  attention  to  his  bishopric  of  Parma. 
Papal  historians  observe  with  pride  that  his  irregular- 
ities entirely  ceased  in  15 19,  when  he  was  ordained 
priest.  The  friend  of  his  youth,  Leo  X.,  cordially 
included  him  in  his  generous  patronage,  and  he  was 
able  to  build  the  Farnese  palace  and  to  cultivate  ambi- 
tion. In  1523,  he  made  an  effort  to  secure  the  tiara, 
but  at  the  Conclave  the  cardinals  had  not  the  courage 
to  present  to  the  Reformers  as  Pontiff  the  father  of 
four  children.  He  stifled  his  lament  that  Clement  VII. 
had  "robbed  him  of  ten  years  of  the  Papacy,"  and 
became  as  amiable  a  friend  of  that  Pope  as  he  had  been 

'  XL,  19-20. 


Paul  III.  and  the  Counter-Reformation    315 

of  his  five  predecessors;  and  amidst  the  fierce  clash  of 
poHtical  passion  he  retained  a  diplomatic  neutrality. 
He  shared  Clement's  bitter  days  in  Sant'  Angelo,  yet 
did  not  quarrel  with  the  Imperialists. 

These  characteristics  marked  Alessandro  for  the 
throne;  and  they  at  the  same  time  ensured  that  his 
struggle  with  Protestantism  would  be  entirely  futile. 
He  was  now  sixty-seven  years  old,  and  we  easily  picture 
him  from  Titian's  wonderful  portrait;  frail  and  worn 
in  flesh  and  stooping  with  age ;  yet  his  penetrating  eyes 
and  large  bald  dome  of  a  forehead  indicated  a  great 
energy  of  will  and  force  of  intellect.  He  was  essentially 
a  diplomat,  and  the  cardinals,  absorbed  for  the  most 
part  in  the  political  troubles,  did  not  reflect  that  the 
rapier  of  diplomacy  was  the  last  weapon  with  which  to 
meet  the  stout  staves  of  the  northerners.  He  was  an 
excellent  listener,  a  sparing  and  deliberate  talker,  a 
most  skilful  postponer  of  crucial  decisions;  a  "vas  dila- 
tionis,'"  the  Roman  wits  said,  parodying  the  description 
of  a  greater  Paul. 

Dr.  Pastor  thinks  that  the  reforming  cardinals — of 
whom  there  were  now  many — had  much  confidence  in 
his  disposition  to  reform.  If  they  had,  their  trust  is  in 
the  main  another  tribute  to  his  diplomatic  skill.  He 
had  no  idea  of  reforming  the  Curia  and  the  Church 
further  than  might  be  exacted  of  him  by  impleasant 
circumstances. 

Shrewd  observers  must  quickly  have  observed  that 
Paul  III.  remained  at  heart  a  Farnese.  His  son,  Pier 
Luigi,  visited  him  in  Rome  soon  after  his  election. 
Pier  Luigi  had  become  a  military  adventurer,  a  feeble 
emulator  of  Cassar  Borgia,  and  by  taking  arms  in  the 
Imperialist  service,  had  incurred  excommunication 
under  Clement.     Paul  is  said  to  have  received  his  son 


3i6    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

in  secret  and  directed  him  to  keep  away  from  Rome. 
There  was  to  be  no  open  nepotism.  But  in  a  few  weeks 
Pier  Luigi  was  back  in  Rome  and  was  observed  to  have 
plenty  of  money.  Paul  was  crowned  on  November  3d 
(1534)  ^^d  announced  his  intention  to  reform  the 
Church.  On  December  i8th  he  bestowed  the  cardinal- 
ate  on  two  of  his  nephews,  Guido  Sforza  and  Alessandro 
Farnese.  Sforza  was  a  youth  of  seventeen ;  Alessandro 
was  a  fourteen-year  old  pupil  at  Bologna,  yet  he  re- 
ceived, besides  the  red  hat,  the  governorship  of  Spoleto 
and  such  a  number  of  profitable  benefices  that  he  was 
soon  able  to  outshine  some  of  the  more  ostentatious 
cardinals;  and  in  the  next  year  he  was  made  Vice- 
Chancellor.  Both  he  and  Sforza  were  notoriously 
immoral.  Pier  Luigi  was  made  Gonfaloniere,  Com- 
mander of  the  Papal  troops,  and  Duke  of  Castro;  and 
proportionate  benefits  were  showered  on  all  friends  and 
connexions  of  the  Farnese  family. 

It  would  not  be  history  to  dwell  on  the  "obstinacy" 
of  the  Reformers  and  to  fail  to  emphasize  these  very  per- 
tinent and  entirely  undisputed  facts;  but  I  will  dismiss 
in  few  words  this  aspect  of  Paul's  character.  Nepo- 
tism was  one  of  his  most  persistent  traits,  and  we  shall 
repeatedly  find  his  direction  of  Papal  policy  perverted 
by  a  care  for  the  worldly  advancement  of  his  family. 
He  was  equally  unable  and  unwilling  to  break  with  the 
gayer  tradition  of  the  Borgia-Medici  court.  He  loved 
pageantry  and  comedy,  encouraged  the  merry  riot  of 
the  carnival,  favoured  astrologers,  buffoons,  and  pseudo- 
classical  poets,  and  liked  to  dine  with  fair  women.  It 
is,  perhaps,  not  much  to  say  that  his  private  life — at  the 
age  of  seventy — was  irreproachable;  but  it  is  not  im- 
material to  observe  that  he  gave  an  indulgent  eye  to  the 
conduct  of  the  looser  cardinals.     Instead  of  sternly 


Paul  III.  and  the  Counter-Reformation    317 

attempting  to  crush  that  large  body  of  loose  and  luxu- 
rious cardinals  to  whom,  in  the  first  place,  we  may  trace 
the  catastrophe  of  the  Church,  he  added,  at  each  pro- 
motion, a  few  to  their  number.  Of  the  seventy-one 
cardinals  he  promoted  during  his  Pontificate  the  great 
majority  were  good  men;  but  a  few  were  of  such  a 
character  that  their  election  was,  in  the  actual  situation 
of  the  Church,  unpardonable. 

These  little  personal  details  must  be  considered  first 
if  we  are  to  understand  aright  the  attitude  of  Paul  III. 
toward  reform  and  the  reforming  council.  From  the 
first  he  assured  his  visitors  that  he  intended  to  reform 
the  Church.  Before  the  end  of  1534,  he  appointed 
two  reform  commissions — one  on  morals  and  the  other 
on  Church  offices;  though  he  chilled  the  zeal  of  the 
more  ardent  cardinals  by  enjoining  them  to  take  into 
account  the  circumstances.  In  the  spring  of  1535, 
he  prosecuted  Cardinal  Accolti  for  grave  abuse  of  his 
position  of  legate,  but  compromised  for  a  fine  of  59,000 
scudi.  The  Reformers  of  Germany  had  from  the  first 
appealed  to  a  council,  and  Paul  declared  himself  in 
favour  of  a  council;  but  he  insisted  that  it  must  be 
summoned  by  him,  presided  over  by  his  legates,  and 
held  in  Italy;  and  this  not  only  the  princes  of  the 
Schmalkaldic  League  but  the  three  monarchs  concerned 
emphatically  refused.  Charles  V.  saw  that  such  a 
council  would  be — as  Paul  III.  well  knew — utterly 
useless  as  an  instrument  of  reconciliation;  Francis  I. 
did  not  want  reconciliation  at  all,  since  it  would  give 
to  Charles  command  of  a  united  Germany;  and  Henry 
VIII.,  who  accepted  the  title  of  Head  of  the  English 
Church  in  1534,  and  in  the  following  year  initiated  his 
policy  of  bloody  persecution,  had  done  with  Rome. 
In  fact,  instead  of  giving  all  the  negotiations  about  a 


3i8    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

council,  I  would  point  out  that  there  never  was  the 
slightest  hope  by  such  a  means  of  ending  the  schism. 
Each  side  was  absolutely  convinced  of  the  truth  of  its 
formulas,  and  very  few,  least  of  all  the  Pope,  thought 
that  compromise  was  possible  or  desirable.  Luther 
was  quite  willing  to  attend  a  council,  even  in  Italy;  but 
merely  in  order  to  convince  the  Church  of  its  errors  and 
abominations.  The  Pope  wanted  a  council  merely 
in  order  to  formulate  Catholic  doctrine  in  clear  official 
terms  and  thus  to  provide  a  standard  for  the  condem- 
nation and  extermination  of  the  heretics.  No  Pope 
could  think  otherwise. 

Paul  at  length  ventured  to  announce  "to  the  city 
and  the  world"  that  a  general  council  would  be  held 
at  Mantua  on  the  23d  of  May,  1537;  but  when  the 
Duke  of  Mantua  directed  the  Pope  to  send  an  army  to 
protect  his  council,  the  design  was  abandoned.  A 
Bull  next  announced  that  the  council  would  meet  at 
Vicenza  on  May  i,  1538;  but  as  only  five  prelates  had 
arrived  there  when,  on  May  12th,  the  three  Papal 
Legates  made  their  imposing  entry — after  waiting  in 
nervous  hope  some  distance  away — that  project,  also, 
was  abandoned.  I  would  not  agree  that  Paul  did  not 
sincerely  want  a  council,  but  during  the  first  ten  years 
the  council  he  wanted  was  an  impossibility. 

Meantime,  the  idea  of  reform  by  commissions  was 
sustaining  the  half-desperate  hopes  of  the  better  car- 
dinals at  Rome.  In  February,  1537,  the  commission 
drew  up  so  sound  and  true  and  large  a  scheme  of  reform 
that  the  anti-reformers  successfully  pleaded  that  it 
would  injure  the  Church  to  publish  it,  and  it  remains 
"a  scrap  of  paper"  in  the  Vatican  Archives.  After 
much  discussion,  Paul  decided  to  begin  with  the  reform 
of  the  Dataria  (an  office  of  the  Court  which  yielded 


Paul  III.  and  the  Counter-Reformation    319 

more  than  50,000  ducats  a  year,  nearly  half  the  entire 
income,  to  the  Papal  exchequer  in  connexion  with  the 
issue  of  graces,  privileges,  dispensations,  etc.),  and  a  fur- 
ther long  discussion  ensued.  The  discussion  lasted 
some  three  years,  without  practical  issue,  and  it  was 
not  until  the  end  of  1540  that  a  few  obvious  reforms 
could  be  carried  in  some  of  the  departments  of  the 
Curia.  Characteristic  is  the  story  of  one  of  these 
reforms.  Pressed  by  the  sterner  cardinals,  who  wrote 
grave  letters  to  each  other  on  the  Pope's  conduct,  to 
put  an  end  to  the  scandal  of  non-resident  prelates 
(absentee  landlords),  Paul  summoned  eighty  of  them, 
who  were  living  in  comfort  at  Rome,  to  return  to 
their  dioceses.  There  was  terrible  alarm.  But  they 
successfully  pleaded  that  they  could  not  live  on  the 
mere  incomes  of  their  sees,  and  they  remained  in 
Rome.  Paul  had  to  be  content  with  discharging  a 
few  officials,  directing  the  clergy  to  reform  their 
lives  and  their  sermons,  and  encouraging  the  new 
religious  congregations:  among  which  was  a  certain 
very  small  community,  calling  itself  the  "Company 
of  Jesus,"  which  seemed  to  him,  when  it  first  appeared 
in  Rome,  eccentric  and  of  very  doubtful  value  to  the 
Church. 

In  the  meantime,  Paul  had  successfully  maintained 
the  political  neutrality  which  he  had  from  the  first 
contemplated.  Francis  and  Charles  both  sought  alli- 
ance with  him,  and  he  tried  instead  to  reconcile  them 
and  avert  war.  It  is  to  his  credit  that  when  Charles, 
perceiving  his  weakness,  offered,  as  the  price  of  alliance, 
the  marquisate  of  Novara  to  Pier  Luigi  and  a  principal- 
ity in  Naples  to  Pier's  son  Ottavio,  Paul  still  refused. 
But  the  fact  that  in  1536  he  received  Charles  with 
great  pomp  at  Rome  irritated  Francis,  and  war  broke 


320   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

out.^  In  view  of  the  advances  of  the  Turks,  Paul 
went  in  person  to  Nice,  in  the  spring  of  1538,  and  re- 
conciled the  two  monarchs,  but  his  nepotism  again 
mars  the  merit  of  this  work.  He  arranged  that  his 
grandson  Ottavio,  a  boy  of  thirteen,  should  marry  the 
Emperor's  natural  daughter,  Margaret  of  Austria,  a 
girl-widow  of  sixteen,  who  hated  the  boy;  and  their 
connubial  arrangements  added,  for  many  years,  to 
the  scandal  or  the  gaiety  of  Rome.  Paul  was  also 
severely  blamed  for  the  unscrupulous  way  in  which  he 
wrested  the  duchy  of  Camerino  from  the  Varani  and 
gave  it  to  Ottavio.  When  Francis  violently  objected 
to  this  virtual  alliance,  Paul  married  his  granddaughter 
Vittoria  to  a  French  prince.  Nor  were  the  Reformers 
pleased  when  they  learned  that,  in  return  for  the  Em- 
peror's natural  daughter,  the  Pope  had  granted  to 
Charles  the  right  to  publish  indulgences  in  Spain,  and 
had  given  him  other  privileges  which  would  yield  him 
a  million  ducats  a  year  of  Church  money;  and  that 
neither  Francis  nor  Charles  would  help  Italy  to  face 
the  Turks. 

The  unchecked  advance  of  the  Turk  had,  indirectly, 
another  grave  disadvantage  for  the  Papacy.  Charles 
needed  the  united  forces  of  his  dominions  to  meet  the 
Turks,  and  the  Protestants  profited  by  his  need. 
Whatever  may  be  said  about  the  amiable  intentions 
of  Paul  III.,  at  an  earlier  date,  he  now  plainly  designed 
to  crush  the  followers  of    the  Reformers  in  the  field. 

■  See,  for  this  aspect  of  Paul's  Pontificate,  an  article  by  L.  Cardauns, 
"Paul  III.,  Karl  V.,  und  Franz  I.,"  in  Quellen  und  Forschungen  aus 
Italienischen  Archiven,  Bd.  XI.,  Heft  I.,  pp.  147-244.  The  writer  holds 
that  an  alliance  with  Charles  was  advisable  with  a  view  to  crush  Pro- 
testantism. There  is  certainly  much  evidence  that  Paul  wished  to 
discover  which  of  the  rival  monarchs  would  do  most  for  his  children, 
yet  he  assuredly  had  a  sincere  desire  for  neutrality. 


Paul  III.  and  the  Counter-Reformation    321 

He  sent  his  grandson,  Cardinal  Alessandro  Famese, 
to  the  courts  of  Francis  and  of  Charles,  and  the  instruc- 
tions which  he  gave  him,  as  well  as  the  letters  of  the 
Cardinal  himself,  show  that  he  sought,  not  only  their 
support  of  his  Italian  council,  but  the  co-operation  of 
the  monarchs  against  the  Turks  and  the  Protestants.' 
Both  refused,  and  Charles,  in  spite  of  the  Pope's  vehe- 
ment objections,  consented  to  the  holding  of  another 
conference  or  discussion  with  the  representatives  of 
the  Protestants.  The  conference  took  place  at  Hagenau 
on  June  12th,  and  had,  of  course,  no  result,  but  a  fresh 
attempt  was  made  at  Worms  in  January  1541,  and 
Paul  sent  Bishop  Campeggio  and  four  theologians  to 
meet  the  Protestant  divines.  It  is  needless  to  discuss 
the  Colloquy  in  detail,  since  such  experiments  never 
had  the  least  prospect  of  success,  but  the  next  conference 
is  of  some  interest. 

Some  of  the  German  princes,  like  the  Duke  of  Bava- 
ria, had  no  wish  to  see  a  religious  reconciliation,  since 
their  ambition  had  a  larger  chance  of  success  in  a  dis- 
united Empire;  and  Francis  I.  was  only  too  eager  to 
support  these  princes.^  Other  vassals  of  the  Emperor 
were  irreconcilable  Protestants.  But  there  were  on 
both  sides  a  few  men  of  a  moderate  disposition,  who 
believed  that  a  round-table  conference  might  still  se- 
cure religious  peace,  if  not  the  old  unity.  Charles  V. 
was  of  this  opinion,  and  he  made  it  a  test  of  the  Pope's 
sincerity  that  he  should  co-operate  in  a  last  attempt. 

'  See  Nuntiaturberichte  aus  Deutschland,  edited  by  W.  Friedensberg, 
V,  140  and  59.  JMany  useful  documents  will  also  be  found  in  H.  Loem- 
mcr's  Monumenta  Vaticana  historiam  ecclesiasticam  saculi  XVI.  illus- 
trantia,  1861. 

^  See  the  report  of  the  Venetian  ambassador  in  Le  Relazioni  degli  am- 
basciatori  Veneti,  edited  by  C.  Alberi,  ist  series. 


322    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Cardinal  Contarini,  a  man  of  Impressive  character  and 
considerable  ability,  was  sent  as  legate,  and  for  some 
time  before  the  opening  of  the  Diet  of  Ratisbon,  he 
zealously  endeavoured  to  find  the  dogmatic  formulas 
which  had  some  prospect  of  common  acceptance. 
Charles  had  begged  the  Pope  to  confer  large  powers  of 
concession  on  his  legate,  but  we  now  know  that  Paul 
gave  him  but  slender  authority,  couched  in  the  vaguest 
of  language/  If  any  attempt  were  made  to  set- 
tle important  points  of  doctrine,  he  was  to  protest 
and  leave  the  Diet.  In  a  later  instruction,  he  warned 
Contarini  not  to  allow  the  Emperor  to  suspect  that 
Rome  favoured  the  use  of  force  rather  than  persuasion, 
and  to  say,  in  regard  to  the  proposal  that  the  Papacy 
should  send  50,000  scudi  for  the  purpose  of  bribing 
influential  Protestants,  that  such  a  design  seemed 
neither  decent  nor  safe,  but  that  the  50,000  scudi 
would  be  sent  "for  distribution,"  if,  and  when,  a  recon- 
ciliation was  effected.  ^  It  is  plain  that  Paul  foresaw  the 
complete  failure  of  the  Colloquy — we  must  remember 
that  success  depended  entirely  on  concession  and  no 
Pope  could  make  a  concession  on  doctrine — and  in- 
tended to  make  the  failure  a  ground  for  an  appeal  to 
arms. 

The  Diet  opened  on  April  27,  1541,  and  in  a  few  weeks 
Contarini  and  his  friends  announced  with  sincere  joy 
that  they  had  reached  a  common  formula  on  so  delicate 
a  topic  as  justification.  This  agreement  had  been 
reached  by  the  Papal  Legate  accepting  a  semi-heretical 
formula,   which  Rome  afterwards  rejected.     But  the 

» E.  Dietrich,  Kardinal  Contarini  (1885),  p.  565. 

'  This  curious  side-light  on  the  history  of  the  Reformation  is  given, 
in  a  document  reproduced  from  the  secret  archives  of  the  Vatican,  by 
Dr.  Pastor  (xi.,  431). 


Paul  III.  and  the  Counter-Reformation    323 

futility  of  the  proceedings  soon  became  apparent. 
When  they  went  on  to  discuss  transubstantiation  and 
penance,  priestly  cehbacy  and  monastic  vows,  the 
antagonism  became  acute,  and  the  Colloquy  ended  in 
disorder.  The  Pope  rejected  all  the  formulas  approved 
by  his  Legate,  and  wrote  him,  on  June  loth,  that  he 
was  sending  the  50,000  scudi,  and  would  send  a  larger 
sum  if  the  Catholics  found  it  necessary  to  draw  the 
sword  against  the  heretics.  Some  of  the  stricter  car- 
dinals at  Rome,  such  as  Carafa  and  Toledo,  were  now 
convinced  that  force  was  necessary. 

In  September  (1541)  the  Pope  met  the  Emperor  at 
Lucca.  Charles  insisted  that  the  council,  whatever 
form  it  took,  must  be  held  in  Germany,  but  Paul  pleaded 
that  he  wished  to  preside  in  person  and  that  his  age 
forbade  so  lengthy  a  journey.  We  shall  hardly  be 
unjust  if  we  regard  these  pleas  as  pretexts.  The  forth- 
coming council  was,  in  the  Pope's  view, — an  inevitable 
view, — to  be  a  canonical  gathering  for  the  stricter  defini- 
tion of  the  doctrines  already  rejected  by  the  Reformers ; 
when  that  council  had  formulated  the  faith,  the  secular 
powers  must  deal  with  any  who  dissented  from  it. 
Paul  still  fought  for  the  holding  of  the  council  in  Italy, 
where  he  could  overwhelm  the  Protestant  envoys,  but 
as  it  became  entirely  certain  that  not  a  single  Protestant 
would  come  to  Italy,  he  spoke  of  Cambrai,  Metz,  and 
other  alternatives,  and  at  length  consented  to  Trent. 
Still  there  was  much  friction,  and  many  were  not  yet 
convinced  that  the  Pope  sincerely  desired  a  reform- 
council.  Francis  I.  angrily  exclaimed  that  this  council 
seemed  to  be  an  imperial  concern,  and  he  refused  to 
publish  the  Bull  of  Convocation.  Charles,  on  the 
other  side,  was  annoyed  to  find  that  in  the  Bull  he  was 
put  on  a  level  with  that  perfidious  ally  of  the  infidel, 


324    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Francis  I.,  and  he  threatened  to  keep  his  German 
prelates  from  going  to  Trent.  But  the  Pope  energet- 
ically overbore  all  opposition,  and  the  historic  Council 
of  Trent  was  announced  for  November  ist.  In  the 
meantime  (July,  1542),  the  Pope  reconstituted  the  In- 
quisition in  Italy  and  put  it  under  the  control  of  the 
more  fanatical  cardinals  like  Carafa.  It  was  empowered 
to  imprison  heretics,  confiscate  their  goods,  and  (with 
the  use  of  the  secular  arm)  to  put  them  to  death.  Dr. 
Pastor  deplores  that  the  Vatican  authorities  still  refuse 
to  allow  access  to  the  records  of  the  Roman  Inquisition, 
so  that  we  are  very  imperfectly  acquainted  with  its 
work. 

The  Papal  Legates  arrived  at  Trent  with  great  pomp, 
on  November  226.,  three  weeks  after  the  appointed 
date,  yet  not  a  single  bishop  had  appeared.  Six  weeks 
later  the  arrival  of  two  bishops  gave  them  a  slender 
satisfaction,  but  by  the  end  of  March  not  more  than 
a  dozen  bishops — and  these  mostly  Italians — had 
reached  the  seat  of  the  council.  Neither  Germans  nor 
French  would  come,  and  the  Italians  thought  it  prudent 
not  to  arrive  in  a  body  so  as  to  give  to  the  council  a 
national  complexion.  In  the  summer,  Paul  went  to 
confer  with  Charles  at  Parma,  but  the  issue  of  their 
conference  was  a  bitter  disappointment  for  the  Catholic 
reformers.  Paul  proposed  to  suspend  the  opening  of 
the  council  and  to  transfer  it  from  Trent,  and  begged 
the  Emperor  to  bring  about  a  compromise  with  France, 
by  yielding  Milan  to  the  Pope's  nephew,  Ottavio. 
Charles  refused  to  assent,  and  Paul,  on  his  own  account, 
suspended  the  council  and  began  to  look  to  Francis  I. 
for  the  aggrandizement  of  his  family. 

The  events  which  followed  make  the  historian  wonder 
that  any  have   attempted   to  clear  the  character  of 


Paul  III.  and  the  Counter-Reformation    325 

Paul  III.  of  disgraceful  nepotism  and  insincerity. 
Charles  V.  sought  alliance  with  Henry  VIII. ,  and  Paul 
sent  his  nephew,  Cardinal  Farnese,  to  the  Court  of 
Francis  I.  In  that  grave  crisis  of  the  Church's  fortunes, 
we  have  the  Catholic  Emperor  in  alliance  with  Henry 
VIII.,  the  most  Catholic  King  in  alliance  with  the  Turks, 
and  the  Pope  seeking,  with  a  notoriety  which  gave 
great  scandal,  the  enrichment  of  his  illegitimate  child- 
ren and  other  relatives.  Vittoria  Farnese,  the  Pope's 
granddaughter,  was  betrothed  to  the  Duke  of  Orleans, 
and  the  Pope  promised  her,  from  the  patrimony  of  St. 
Peter,  the  duchies  of  Parma  and  Piacenza  as  her  dowry. 
Charles  angrily  threatened  to  invade  Rome,  and  the 
Spanish  and  German  envoys  at  the  Vatican  used  lan- 
guage which  had  rarely  been  heard  in  the  Papal  cham- 
bers. It  is  put  to  the  credit  of  the  Pope  only  that  he 
refused  still  to  disown  or  condemn  Charles,  as  Francis 
demanded,  and  that  he  earnestly  sought  to  reconcile 
the  monarchs.  In  September,  his  efforts  bore  fruit 
in  the  Peace  of  Crespy.  Yet  we  must  recall  that,  as 
all  acknowledge,  Paul  was  in  part  concerned  for  the 
security  of  his  family  in  refusing  to  incur  the  hostility 
of  Charles;  and  we  know  that  a  secret  clause  of  the 
Treaty  of  Crespy  compelled  Francis  and  Charles  to 
unite  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  the  Protestants  as 
well  as  the  Turks. 

It  was  also  stipulated  at  Crespy  that  the  council 
should  at  last  begin  its  labours,  and  Paul  announced 
that  it  would  open  at  Trent  on  March  25,  1545.  But 
the  attempt  was  again  abortive,  and  only  two  bishops 
greeted  the  Papal  Legates  on  the  appointed  date.  The 
Catholic  monarchs  did  not  believe  that  the  Pope  was 
sincere,  and  the  Protestants  were  violently  opposed  to 
a  coimcil  on  the  orthodox  Catholic  lines.      Cardinal 


326    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Famese  was  sent  to  induce  the  Emperor  to  send  his 
German  bishops,  and  we  now  find  Charles  leaning  more 
decidedly  to  the  plan  of  coercion  and  war.  Cardinal 
Farnese  writes  in  high  spirits  to  his  uncle  that  Charles 
is,  in  alliance  with  the  Papacy,  about  to  make  war  on 
the  Protestants;  and  it  is  unhappily  characteristic  that 
he  adds  that  this  alliance  may  turn  to  the  great  profit 
of  the  Farnese  family. '  In  fact,  the  Cardinal  returned 
to  Rome  with  all  speed,  in  disguise,  and  Paul  promised 
100,000  ducats  and  12,000  men  for  the  war,  besides 
granting  Charles  a  half-year's  income  of  the  Spanish 
Church  and  permission  to  raise  500,000  ducats  by  the 
sale  of  monastic  property.  The  eagerness  of  the  Pope 
at  this  adoption  of  a  design  he  had  so  long  cherished 
may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  his  courier  to  Charles 
left  Rome  on  June  i6th  and  reached  Worms  by  the 
23d.  Charles,  however,  had  begun  to  waver  in  his 
brave  resolution,  and  the  war  was  postponed;  but  the 
advancement  of  the  Farnesi  was  not  forgotten.  The 
duchies  of  Parma  and  Piacenza  were  now  given  to  Pier 
Luigi,  and  the  Pope  met  the  violent  protests  of  the 
cardinals  with  a  statistical  "proof"  that  the  duchies 
were  of  less  value  than  a  few  small  places  which  his  son 
surrendered  to  the  Holy  See.  The  annoyance  of  the 
reforming  prelates  was  complete  when  the  Pope  issued 
a  medal  representing  a  naked  Ganymede  leaning  on  an 
eagle  and  watering  the  lily  which  was  the  emblem  of 
the  Farnese  family.^ 

Charles  would  not  consent  to  the  removal  of  the 
council  to  Bologna,  and  it  was  at  length  opened  at 
Trent  on  December  13,   1545,  with  an  attendance  of 

'  Famese's  letter  to  the  Pope  is  reproduced  by  A.  von  Druffel,  Karl 
V.  und  die  Romische  Kurie,  ii.,  57. 

'  It  is  described  in  A.  Armand,  Les  Medailleurs  Italiens,  i.,  172. 


Paul  III.  and  the  Counter-Reformation    327 

four  archbishops  and  twenty-one  bishops.  The  first 
session  was  purely  formal,  and  the  second  session 
(January  7th)  was  occupied  by  a  violent  discussion  on 
procedure.  The  Emperor  feared  that  a  formulation 
of  Catholic  doctrines  would  close  the  door  of  the  Church 
definitively  against  the  Germans,  and  he  insisted  that 
the  reform  of  morals  and  discipline  must  come  first. 
Paul  feared  that,  if  the  question  of  reform  came  first, 
the  council  would  almost  resolve  itself  into  a  trial  of 
the  Papacy;  and  there  is  good  ground  to  think  that, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  wanted  the  doctrines  in  dispute 
formulated  as  a  preliminary  step  to  the  more  drastic 
condemnation  of  the  Reformers.  The  conflict  ended  in 
compromise :  each  sitting  of  the  council  was  to  consider 
both  doctrine  and  reform.  The  correspondence  of  the 
legates  with  the  Pope^  shows  how  vehemently  Paul 
fought  for  his  plan,  and  it  was  only  at  their  very  grave 
and  emphatic  assurance  that  reform  must  proceed — • 
that  deeds,  not  Bulls,  were  wanted,  as  they  put  it — 
that  he  agreed  to  the  compromise. 

The  fathers  of  the  council,  who,  at  the  end  of  June, 
had  risen  in  number  to  about  sixty,  had  held  two  fur- 
ther sessions,  and  had  discussed  only  a  few  dogmas 
and  measures  of  reform  when  their  labours  were  again 
suspended  by  the  outbreak  of  the  religious  war.  The 
Protestants  had  naturally  refused  to  attend  the  Papal 
council,  and  had  continued  to  spread  their  faith  in  the 
north.  Paul,  therefore,  urged  Charles  to  carry  out 
his  design  of  repressing  them  by  arms,  and  in  June 
(1546)  a  secret  treaty  was  signed  by  Charles  V.,  the 
Duke  of  Bavaria,  Ferdinand  I.,  and  the  Pope  uniting 
their  forces  for  an  attack  upon  the  Schmalkaldic  dis- 
senters.    In  order  to  prevent  Charles  from  again  losing 

^  See  Pallavicini's  Isloria  del  Consilio  di  Trento,  bks.  vi.  and  vii. 


328    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

his  resolution,  the  Pope  dishonourably  communicated 
this  treaty  to  the  Protestants,  nor  was  Charles  less 
angry  with  Paul  for  representing  to  France,  Poland, 
and  Venice  that  the  impending  struggle  was  a  reHgious 
crusade  in  which  any  Catholic  people  might  assist. 
It  was  the  policy  of  Charles  to  place  his  enterprise  on 
purely  secular  grounds.  There  was  again  grave  fric- 
tion between  Charles  and  the  Pope,  and  the  Farnesi 
mingled  with  the  graver  issues  a  petulant  complaint 
that  Charles  had  done  so  little  for  them. 

The  Protestants,  however,  were  badly  organized 
and  were  soon  defeated.  Paul  bitterly  complained 
that  Charles  would  not  follow  up  his  victory  by  initiat- 
ing a  policy  of  persecution  in  south  Germany,  and 
would  not,  when  Henry  VIII.  died  (1547),  join  forces 
with  Francis  I.  for  the  invasion  of  England ;  and  another 
fiery  quarrel  ensued.  The  prelates  at  Trent  conceived 
that  they  were  menaced  by  the  distant  and  subdued 
Protestants,  and  Paul  quickly  availed  himself  of  the 
apprehension  to  demand  a  removal  to  Italy.  Charles 
went  so  far  as  to  threaten  to  confiscate  the  whole  of 
the  property  of  the  Church  in  Germany,  but  a  con- 
venient epidemic  broke  out  at  Trent  and  Paul  removed 
the  council  to  Bologna.  Another  year  was  spent  in 
discussion  as  to  the  validity  of  the  transfer,  and  the 
rumour  that  the  Pope  secretly  desired  to  frustrate  the 
work  of  reform  once  more  gained  ground.  This  is,  as  I 
explained,  a  half-truth.  But  so  little  reform  was  actu- 
ally achieved  during  the  life  of  Paul  that  I  need  not 
deal  further  here  with  the  Council  of  Trent. 

The  year  1648  was  filled  with  the  acrid  conflict  of 
Pope  and  Emperor.  Paul  drew  nearer  to  France,  and 
Rome,  believing  that  at  length  the  Pope  was  about  to 
abandon  his  policy  of  neutrality,  prepared  once  more 


Paul  III.  and  the  Counter-Reformation    329 

for  invasion.  Charles  made  no  descent  on  Italy,  but 
he  now  took  a  step  which  seemed  to  the  Pope  almost 
as  scandalous  an  outrage.  He  issued  his  famous  Inter- 
rim:  a  document  which  enacted  that,  until  the  points 
in  dispute  were  settled  by  a  council,  priests  might 
marry,  the  laity  might  communicate  from  the  chalice, 
and  vague  and  conciliatory  interpretations  might  be 
put  on  the  doctrines  of  the  Church.  In  spite  of  the 
intrigues  of  France,  Paul  wearily  maintained  his  nego- 
tiations with  Charles,  and,  to  the  last,  pressed  the 
ambitions  of  his  family.  In  October  (1549),  however, 
his  favourite  grandson  rebelled  against  his  decision  in 
regard  to  Parma,  and  the  aged  Pope  abandoned  the 
unhappy  struggle.  He  died  on  November  loth  of  that 
year. 

In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  some  recent  historians,  the 
character  of  Paul  does  not  stand  out  with  distinction  in 
the  Papal  chronicle.  His  lamentable  nepotism  mars 
his  whole  career,  and  his  real  reluctance  to  press  the 
work  of  reform  did  grave  injury  to  his  Church.  He 
belonged  essentially  to  the  earlier  phase  of  the  Papacy, 
and  it  is  apparent  that,  if  he  could  have  extirpated 
Protestantism  by  the  sword,  the  Papacy  would  have 
returned  to  the  more  decent  levities  of  the  days  of  Leo 
X.  As  it  was,  he  did  comparatively  little  for  either 
culture  or  religion.  He  very  cordially  employed 
Michael  Angelo  and  Sangallo,  and  showed  a  concern 
for  the  antiquities  and  the  monuments  of  Rome.  He 
had  ability,  power,  and  taste ;  but  he  had  not  that  fiery 
will  for  reform  and  that  deep  religious  faith  which  were 
needed  in  that  hour  of  danger. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

SIXTUS  V.  AND  THE  NEW  CHURCH 

THE  Council  of  Trent,  which  had  been  convoked 
with  the  formal  aim  of  healing  the  great  schism 
of  Christendom,  hardened  that  schism  and  made  it 
irremediable.  I  have  already  observed  how  natural 
it  was  that  the  Papacy  should  refuse  to  make  open 
confession  of  its  decay,  and  in  some  degree  surrender 
its  authority,  by  permitting  the  Church  to  reform,  not 
only  its  members,  but  its  head.  The  inevitable  con- 
ception of  the  Popes  was  to  retain  the  work  of  reform 
in  their  own  hands  and  to  use  the  council,  if  council 
there  must  be, — we  have  seen  that  Popes  had  reason  to 
look  with  suspicion  on  councils, — to  secure  an  agree- 
ment on  doctrinal  standards  by  which  the  Inquisitors 
might  judge,  and  secular  princes  might  exterminate, 
heretics.  They  miscalculated  the  power  of  the  northern 
rebels  and  the  chances  of  an  unselfish  cohesion  of  the 
Catholic  princes  against  them.  Nearly  half  of  Europe 
adopted  a  new  version  of  the  Christian  faith,  and,  when 
the  Thirty  Years'  War  finally  proved  the  indestructibil- 
ity of  that  creed,  the  task  of  the  Papacy  was  narrowed 
to  the  ruling  and  reforming  of  southern  Europe  and 
the  spiritual  conquest  of  the  new  worlds  which  had 
appeared  beyond  the  seas.  For  this  fourth  phase  of 
Papal  development — the  period  from  the  consolida- 

330 


Sixtus  V.  and  the  New  Church        331 

tion  of  the  Reformation  to  the  first  outbreak  of  Modern- 
ism in  the  French  Revolution — the  Pontificates  of 
Sixtus  V.  and  Benedict  XIV.  are  the  most  illuminating 
and  significant. 

Even  the  failure  of  Paul  III.  did  not  entirely  banish 
from  the  Vatican  the  levity  which  had  been  the  imme- 
diate cause  of  its  disaster.  Julius  III.  (1550-1555) 
at  first  resumed,  somewhat  reluctantly,  the  sittings  of 
the  Council  of  Trent,  but  he  again  suspended  its  work 
in  1552  and  entered  upon  a  period  of  luxurious  ease  and 
frivolous  enjoyment  which  deeply  shocked  the  graver 
cardinals.  At  his  death  the  fiery  Neapolitan  reformer, 
Cardinal  Carafa,  who  had  dictated  the  more  severe 
decisions  of  Paul  III.,  received  the  tiara,  and  he  spent 
four  energetic  years  (1555- 1559)  in  a  relentless  attack 
upon  heresy  in  Catholic  lands.  He  made  vigorous  use 
of  the  Inquisition,  which  Paul  III.  had  (largely  at  the 
instigation  of  St.  Ignatius)  set  up  in  Rome,  and  he  pub- 
lished a  complete  Index  of  Prohibited  Books.'  But  his 
reforms,  his  heresy-hunts,  and  his  hostility  to  Spain 
were  enforced  with  such  harshness  that  the  Romans 
almost  cursed  his  memory  when  his  short  Pontificate 
came  to  an  end.  It  is  a  singular  illustration  of  the 
tenacity  of  abuses  at  Rome  that  even  the  austere 
Carafa  was  a  nepotist,  and  the  nephews  he  favoured 
were  of  so  unworthy  a  character  that  they  were  exe- 
cuted— though  one  of  them  was  a  cardinal — by  his 
successor. 

Pius  IV.  (1559-65)  was  a  more  persuasive  reformer: 
a  Milanese  of  lowly  origin  but  of  some  distinction  in 
canonical  scholarship.     He  guided  to  their  close  the 


■  See  Dr.  G.  H.  Putnam's  Censorship  of  tJie  Church  of  Rome  (2  vols., 
1907),  i.,  168. 


332    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

labours  of  the  Council  of  Trent/  and  on  January  26, 
1564,  put  the  Papal  seal  on  the  precise  formulation  of 
the  Roman  creed.  Pius  V.  (1565-72)  brought  to  the 
Papal  throne  the  austere  ideals  of  a  sincere  Dominican 
monk.  He  was  not  content  with  persecuting  the 
Italians  who  criticized  the  Papacy;  he  did  much  to 
reform  the  Papal  Court  and  the  city.  Gregory  XIII. 
(1572-85),  a  scholarly  Pope,  mingled  in  strange  propor- 
tion the  virtues  and  vices  of  his  predecessors.  His 
name  survives  honourably  in  the  Gregorian  Calendar, 
and  he  did  more  than  any  other  Pope  to  encourage  the 
spread  of  that  network  of  Jesuit  colleges  throughout 
southern  Europe  which  proved  so  effective  a  hindrance 
to  the  advance  of  Protestantism;  but  the  Te  Detim  he 
sang  over  the  foul  "St.  Bartholomew  Massacre"  (1572) 
and  the  condition  of  infuriated  rebellion  in  which  he 
left  the  Papal  States  at  his  death  betray  his  defects. 
The  Papal  income  had  fallen  considerably  since  the 
loss  of  England  and  north  Germany  and  Scandinavia, 
yet  Gregory  wished  to  pay  heavy  subsidies  to  the  mili- 
tant Catholic  princes.  He  imposed  such  taxes,  and 
aroused  such  fierce  anger  by  seizing  estates  after  dis- 
puting the  title-deeds  of  the  owners,  that  Italy  almost 
slew  him  with  its  hatred. 

In  these  circumstances  the  famous  Sixtus  V.  mounted 
the  Papal  throne.  Felice  Peretti  had  been  born  at 
Grottamare,  in  the  March  of  Ancona,  on  December  13, 
1 52 1.  The  unwonted  vigour  of  his  character  is  traced 
by  some  to  the  Dalmatian  blood  of  his  ancestors,  who, 
in  the  preceding  century,  had  fled  before  the  Turks  to 
Italy.  They  had  preserved  their  robust  health,  and 
attained  no  fortune,  by  work  on  the  soil,  and  there  is 

'  See,  besides  the  work  of  Pallavicini  already  quoted,  Paolo  Sarpi's 
Istoria  del  Concilio  Tridenlino. 


Sixtus  V.  and  the  New  Church        333 

not  the  least  improbability  in  the  tradition — which 
some  recent  writers  resent — that  Felice  at  one  time 
tended  his  father's  swine,'  But  at  the  age  of  nine  he 
was  sent  to  the  friary  at  Montalto,  where  he  had  an 
uncle,  and  he  proved  a  good  student.  He  became  so 
excellent  a  preacher  that  he  was  summoned  to  give  the 
Lenten  Sermons  at  Rome  in  1552,  and  he  attracted  the 
notice  of  St.  Ignatius  and  St.  Philip  Neri,  and  of  some 
of  the  graver  cardinals.  After  presiding  over  one  or 
two  convents  of  his  Order,  he  was  put  in  charge  of  the 
friary  at  Venice  in  1556,  and  was  in  the  next  year  made 
Counsellor  to  the  Inquisition.  His  ardent  nature  and 
strict  ideals  caused  him  to  use  his  powers  with  such 
harshness  that  both  his  brethren  and  the  Venetian 
government  attacked  him.  He  was  forced  several 
times  to  retire,  and  in  1560  Rome  was  definitively 
compelled  to  withdraw  him. 

The  fact  that  he  had  been  thwarted  by  lax  brethren 
and  by  an  (from  the  Roman  point  of  view)  irreligious 
government  commended  the  fiery  monk  still  further 
to  his  reformer-friends.  He  received  a  chair  at  the 
Sapienza  (Roman  University)  and  was  made  Counsellor 
to  the  Holy  Office.  In  1565  Cardinal  Buoncompagni 
was  sent  on  a  mission  to  Spain,  and,  apparently  to  the 
Cardinal's  disgust,  the  learned  friar  was  included  in  his 
train.     The   sincerely   religious   temper   of   Sixtus   V. 

'  It  is,  however,  true  that  the  hostile  Italian  biographer,  Gregorio 
Leti  ( Vita  di  Sisto  Quinto,  3  vols.,  1693),  who  tells  this  must  be  read  with 
discretion;  and  we  must  use  equal  discretion  in  reading  Tempesti's 
Storia  delta  Vita  e  Geste  di  Sisto  V.  (1754),  which  is  inspired  by  a  contrary- 
determination  to  praise  Sixtus.  I  need  recommend  only  the  full  and 
generally  judicious  biography  of  Sixtus  which  we  owe  to  Baron  de 
Hiibner  {Sixte  Quint,  3  vols.,  1870),  remarking  that  in  it  the  panegyrical 
tendency  is  more  conspicuous  than  the  critical.  For  a  smaller  biography 
M.  A.  J.  Dumesnil's  Histoire  de  Sixte-Quint  (1869)  is  excellent. 


334    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

makes  it  difficult  for  some  of  his  biographers  to  under- 
stand his  very  original  character.  In  spite  of  his  virtue 
he  was  quite  clearly  ambitious, — one  must  live  in  the 
ecclesiastical  world  to  realize  how  the  ambition  of 
power  and  the  ambition  to  do  good  fuse  with  each  other 
in  the  clerical  mind, — he  had  an  atrocious  temper,  and 
he  retained  what  higher-born  prelates  would  call  the 
rudeness  of  a  peasant.  He  quarrelled  with  Buon- 
compagni,  and,  as  the  mission  was  never  really  dis- 
charged, he  had  no  opportunity  to  distinguish  himself. 
However,  the  new  Pope  (for  whose  election  Buoncom- 
pagni  returned  prematurely  to  Rome)  was  the  friendly 
Dominican  colleague,  Pius  V.  Padre  Montalto  was 
made  Vicar  Apostolic  over  the  Franciscan  Order — the 
General  having  died — and  he  made  a  drastic  effort  to 
reform  the  reluctant  friars  and  nuns  (i  566-1 568).  For 
this  he  received  the  red  hat  (1570)  and  was  entrusted 
with  the  task  of  editing  the  works  of  St.  Ambrose. 

Unhappily  for  the  ambitious  cardinal-monk,  Pius  V. 
died  in  1572,  and  Cardinal  Buoncompagni  ascended  the 
throne  and  took  the  name  of  Gregory  XIH.  He  with- 
drew the  pension  which  Pius  had  assigned  to  Felice, 
and  for  the  next  thirteen  years  the  Cardinal  had  to  live 
in  retirement  and  comparative  poverty.  In  this  again 
the  very  original  character  of  Peretti  reveals  itself. 
One  might  expect  that  so  stern  a  monastic  reformer 
would  retire  to  a  friary  when  the  Papal  Court  no  longer 
required  his  presence,  but  he  retired,  instead,  to  his 
very  comfortable  palace  and  garden  on  the  Esquiline. 
He  had  brought  his  sister  Camilla  and  her  son  Francesco 
to  live  in  this  palace,  and  even  romance  and  tragedy 
entered  the  friar's  home.  Francesco  had  married  a 
beautiful  and  light-minded  Roman  girl,  and  her  brother, 
Paolo  Orsini,  murdered  Francesco  in  order  to  set  her 


Sixtus  V.  and  the  New  Church        335 

free  for  a  nobler  lover.  The  uncle  could  get  no  redress 
under  Gregory  XIII.  He  curbed  his  anger,  quietly 
bent  over  his  books,  and  watched  the  rising  storm  in 
Italy  which  was  to  close  Gregory's  reign. 

Gregory  died  on  April  10,  1585,  and  Cardinal  Mon- 
talto  was  enclosed  with  his  colleagues  in  the  Sistine 
Chapel  on  April  21st  for  the  making  of  a  new  Pope. 
He  was  in  his  sixty-fourth  year,  and  his  more  malicious 
biographer  would  have  us  believe  that  he  disguised  his 
robustness  under  a  pretence  of  decrepit  age  in  order  to 
deceive  the  cardinals.  The  fact  seems  to  be  that  he 
waited  quietly,  and  without  taking  sides,  in  his  cell 
until  the  factions  had  worn  themselves  out  and  the 
hour  had  come  for  choosing  a  man  who  had  not  been 
regarded  as  papabile.  Most  assuredly  he  deceived  the 
cardinals,  though  not  by  any  dishonest  artifice.  For 
three  days  the  Medici  and  Colonna  and  Farnese,  and 
the  French  and  Spanish  factions,  fought  their  tradi- 
tional battle,  and  not  one  of  the  aspirants  could  get  a 
majority.  Then  one  or  two  cardinals  bethought  them- 
selves of  this  quiet  Cardinal  Montalto,  who  had  lived 
away  on  the  Esquiline  with  his  rustic  sister  for  so  many 
years,  and  who  would  surely  be  grateful  to  any  for 
elevating  him  to  the  throne.  They  visited  Montalto 
and  found  him  humbly  and  gratefully  disposed:  they 
intrigued  nervously  and  rapidly  in  the  little  colony: 
and  presently  cardinals  rushed  to  do  homage  to  the 
former  swineherd  and  applaud  the  Pontificate  of  Sixtus 
V.  *He  was  duly  grateful,  for  a  few  days.  Lucrative 
appointments  were  at  once  divided  amongst  his  friends 
and  supporters ;  though  some  fear  seized  men  when  one 
of  the  cardinals  ventured  to  bring  before  the  new  Pope 
the  murderer  of  his  nephew,  and  Sixtus,  in  sombre  and 
terrible  accents,  bade  the  Orsini  go  and  rid  himself  of 


336    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

his  cut-throats.  He  was  crowned  on  May  1st,  and  he 
lost  Httle  time  in  applying  himself  to  the  drastic  schemes 
of  reform  which  he  had,  apparently,  matured  in  his 
peaceful  garden  on  the  Esquiline. 

Yet  the  first  act  of  the  reformer  betrays  a  defect  and 
compels  us  to  deal  at  once  with  the  chief  irregularity 
of  his  conduct.  After  the  unhappy  nepotism  of  Paul 
IV.,  that  ancient  and  disreputable  practice  had  been 
severely  condemned,  yet  we  find  it  flagrantly  and  imme- 
diately revived  by  Sixtus  himself.  It  was,  as  we  shall 
see,  an  essential  part  of  his  scheme  to  reform  the  Col- 
lege of  Cardinals,  and  he  would  presently  enact  that 
no  one  should  be  raised  to  the  cardinalate  imder  the 
age  of  twenty-one,  and  no  man  with  a  son  or  grandson 
should  attain  the  dignity.  Yet  within  a  fortnight  of 
his  coronation  he  announced  that  his  grand-nephew, 
Alexander  Peretti,  a  boy  of  thirteen,  would  be  raised  to 
the  Sacred  College,  and  another  young  grand-nephew 
was  appointed  Governor  of  the  Borgo  of  St.  Peter's 
and  Captain  of  the  Papal  Guard.  Their  sisters  were 
similarly  enriched  by  noble  alliances  in  later  years. 
This  grave  impropriety  is  not  excused  by  references  to 
the  ambition  and  determination  of  the  Pope's  sister 
Camilla;  indeed,  the  wealth  which  that  lady  now  ob- 
tained, and  the  notoriety  with  which  she  invested  it 
in  Rome,  rather  increased  the  Pope's  guilt.  He  was 
assuredly  not  less  strong  of  will  than  she.  The  defect 
shows  how  deeply  rooted  the  evil  was  at  Rome,  when 
so  resolute  a  reformer  yields  to  it  within  a  few  years  of 
the  Protestant  convulsion  of  Europe. 

With  this  single  concession  to  the  older  traditions, 
however,  Sixtus  turned  energetically  to  the  work  of 
reform.  The  condition  of  the  Papal  States  under 
Gregory  XIII.  had  become  scandalous.     The  leading 


Sixtus  V.  and  the  New  Church        337 

officials  sold  the  lesser  offices  to  corrupt  men,  and  these 
in  turn  recovered  their  money  by  receiving  bribes  to 
overlook  crime.  Brigandage  of  the  most  licentious 
character  spread  over  Italy,  and  even  Roman  nobles 
supported  bands  of  swordsmen  who  would  with  impun- 
ity rid  them  of  an  inconvenient  husband,  force  the 
doors  of  a  virtuous  woman's  house,  or  reHeve  the  pilgrim 
of  his  money.  A  law  prohibiting  the  use  of  firearms 
had  been  passed,  but  it  had  become  the  fashion  to 
ignore  law  and  police.  The  picture  which  Sixtus 
himself  gives  us  in  his  early  Bulls  is  amazing  when  we 
recall  that,  only  a  few  years  before,  the  future  of  the 
Church  had  depended  in  no  small  measure  on  the 
morals  of  Rome  and  Italy. 

Sixtus  had  no  cause  to  spare  the  memory  of  his  pre- 
decessor, and  he  turned  with  truculence  to  the  remedy  of 
this  disorder.  Before  the  end  of  April  he  had  four 
young  men  belonging  to  high  Roman  families  hanged 
on  gibbets,  like  common  murderers,  for  carrying  fire- 
arms in  spite  of  the  decree.  At  the  Carnival  he  erected 
two  gibbets,  one  at  each  end  of  the  Corso,  to  intimidate 
roysterers  from  the  use  of  the  knife.  On  April  30th 
he,  in  his  Bull  Hoc  Nostri,  enacted  the  most  drastic 
punishment  for  brigands  and  all  who  should  support 
or  tolerate  them;  and  on  June  1st  he  caused  the  Roman 
government  to  put  a  price  on  their  heads.  The  nobles 
of  Rome,  who  had  included  these  picturesque  criminals 
in  their  suites,  were  ordered,  under  the  direst  penalties, 
to  yield  or  dismiss  them,  and  even  cardinals  were 
threatened  with  imprisonment  if  they  retained  ser- 
vants of  that  character.  Such  was  the  amazement  of 
Rome  that  the  wits  are  said  to  have  dressed  the  statue 
of  St.  Peter  for  a  journey  and  put  into  its  mouth  the 
reply,  when  St.  Paul  was  supposed  to  ask  the  meaning 

82 


33^   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

of  his  travelling  costume,  that  he  feared  that  Sixtus 
was  about  to  prosecute  him  for  cutting  off  the  ear  of 
the  high-priest's  servant.  From  Rome  the  terror 
spread  throughout  the  Papal  States.  Thousands — 
including  renegade  monks  and  mothers  who  prosti- 
tuted their  daughters — were  executed  or  slain,  and  the 
bands  fled  to  neutral  territory.  Thither  the  merciless 
hand  of  the  Pope  pursued  them,  and  a  few  liberal  con- 
cessions to  the  other  Italian  Powers  induced  them  to 
fling  back  the  banditti  upon  the  arms  of  the  Papal 
troops  or  the  knives  of  those  who  sought  blood- 
money. 

That  Sixtus  pursued  this  very  necessary  campaign 
with  absolute  truculence  and  a  disdain  of  delicacy  in 
the  use  of  means  cannot  be  questioned,  but,  though  the 
fact  does  not  adorn  his  character,  we  know  too  well  the 
licentious  condition  of  Italy  to  waste  our  sympathy 
on  his  victims.  The  most  stubborn  and  audacious 
outlaws  fell  in  a  few  years  before  his  attack.  At 
Bologna,  for  instance,  the  Pepoli  and  the  Malvezzi  had 
for  years  sustained  one  of  those  terrible  feuds  which  had 
so  long  disgraced  the  central  State  of  Christendom. 
They  laughed  at  Papal  injunctions.  Sixtus  had  Count 
Pepoli  treacherously  seized,  tried  (in  his  absence)  at 
Rome,  and  decapitated.  His  followers,  and  those  of 
the  Malvezzi,  scattered  in  alarm,  and  Bologna  was  not 
merely  relieved  of  oppressive  criminals,  but  was  adorned 
with  new  buildings  and  enriched  with  educational  in- 
stitutions by  the  triumphant  Pope.  Later,  in  order 
to  extinguish  the  embers  of  animosity,  he  promoted 
one  of  the  Pepoli  to  the  cardinalate.  The  feuds  of  the 
Gaetani,  the  Colonna,  and  other  old  families  were  simi- 
larly trodden  out,  or  healed  by  marriages  with  grand- 
nieces  of  the  Pope,  and  Italy  became  more  sober  and 


Sixtus  V.  and  the  New  Church        339 

more  prosperous  than  it  had  been  for  ages.  Unhappily, 
the  reform  died  with  Sixtus  and  anarchy  returned. 

This  campaign  occupied  a  few  years,  but  it  had  no 
sooner  been  launched  than  Sixtus  produced  other  of 
the  plans  he  had  prepared  in  his  secluded  palace.  I 
have  shown  how  deeply  the  corruption  of  the  College 
of  Cardinals  affected  the  religious  history  of  Europe, 
and  Sixtus  began  very  quickly  to  reform  it.  It  was, 
perhaps,  not  his  misunderstood  promise  of  gratitude 
to  the  cardinals  who  had  elected  him,  but  some  feeling 
of  incongruity  with  his  own  conduct  in  promoting  his 
boy-nephews,  which  restrained  him  for  a  time.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  he  turned  to  the  problem  in  the 
second  year  of  his  Pontificate,  and  his  Bull  Postquam 
Verus"^  laid  down  severe  rules  for  the  sustained  im- 
provement of  the  College.  The  number  of  cardinals 
was  restricted  to  seventy  (as  is  still  the  rule);  ille- 
gitimates, and  men  who  had  sons  and  grandsons  to 
favour,  were  excluded ;  and  a  cleric  must  have  attained 
an  age  of  at  least  twenty-two  years  before  he  could  be 
promoted.  In  order  to  distribute  and  expedite  the  work 
of  administration,  he  further  divided  the  cardinals 
into  fifteen  "congregations"  (some  of  which  already 
existed),  such  as  those  of  the  Inquisition,  of  Public 
Works,  of  the  Vatican  Press,  and  so  on. 

We  can  hardly  doubt  that  in  this  division  he  had  an 
ulterior  aim.  The  earlier  procedure  had  been  for  the 
Pope  to  lay  a  question  before  the  whole  body  of  the 
cardinals  and  discuss  it  with  them.  Sixtus  continued 
to  do  this,  but  the  cardinals  soon  found  that,  although 
he  desired  discussion,  he  turned  fiery  eyes,  and  even 
showered  rough  and  offensive  epithets,  on  any  who 
opposed  his  plans.     He  was  essentially  an  autocrat, 

'  December  5,  1586. 


340   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

and  the  impetuosity  which  was  inseparable  from  so 
robust  a  character  made  him  an  unpleasant  autocrat. 
The  advantage  to  him  of  splitting  the  cardinals  into 
small  groups  was  that,  on  any  grave  question,  he  had 
merely  to  take  account  of  the  consultative  opinion  of 
a  few  cardinals.  His  more  admiring  biographers  record 
that  he  rarely  dissented  from  the  conclusions  of  his 
congregations;  in  point  of  fact,  he  decided  grave  issues 
before  consulting  them,  or  made  his  will  unmistakably 
clear  to  them.  His  own  promotions  were  generally 
sound,  though  he  at  times  strained  his  regulations  in 
favour  of  a  friend.  But  he  greatly  improved  the  Col- 
lege of  Cardinals,  and  made  an  admirable  effort  to 
exclude  from  it  nationalist  influences. 

We  must  not,  on  the  other  hand,  suppose  that  these 
congregations  of  cardinals  count  in  any  degree — except 
as  the  mere  executive  of  his  will — in  the  great  work  of 
his  Pontificate.  His  own  teeming  brain  and  iron  will 
are  the  sole  sources  of  the  mighty  achievements  of 
those  five  years.  He  had  studied  the  Papal  problem 
on  all  sides  and  was  prepared  at  once  to  remedy  a  dis- 
order or  design  a  new  structure.  Agriculture  and 
industry  were  feeble  and  unprosperous  throughout  the 
Papal  States.  Ruinous  taxation,  lawless  oppression, 
and  the  ease  with  which  one  obtained  one's  bread  at 
the  innumerable  monasteries,  had  demoralized  the 
country  and  ruined  the  Papal  treasury.  Sixtus  had 
some  of  the  qualities  of  an  economist — we  still  possess 
the  careful  account  book  he  kept  in  his  days  of  monastic 
authority — and  he  was  especially  concerned  to  nurse 
the  Papal  income  in  view  of  certain  grandiose  plans 
which  he  seems  to  have  held  in  reserve,  so  that  he 
applied  himself  zealously  to  this  problem.  It  is  generally 
agreed  that  his  work  here  is  a  singular  compound  of 


Sixtus  V.  and  the  New  Church        341 

shrewdness  and  blundering.  By  his  restoration  of  pub- 
lic security  he  lifted  a  burden  from  agriculture,  and 
he  made  special  efforts  to  encourage  the  woollen  in- 
dustry and  the  silk  industry.'  He,  at  great  cost, 
brought  a  good  supply  of  water,  from  an  estate  twenty 
miles  away,  to  Rome,  and  by  this  means  and  by  the 
cutting  of  new  roads  re-established  some  population  on 
the  hills,  which  had  long  been  almost  deserted.  We 
find  Camilla  speculating  profitably  in  this  extension  of 
the  city,  but  the  more  important  point  is  that  the 
population  of  Rome  rose  in  five  years  from  70,000  to 
100,000:  still,  however,  only  one  tenth  of  the  population 
of  Imperial  Rome.  The  Pope  also  gave  a  water-supply 
to  Civita  Vecchia  and  drained  its  marshes;  and  he 
spent — with  very  little  result  in  this  case — 200,000 
ducats  in  draining  the  marshes  at  Terracina,  which  he 
personally  inspected  in  1588. 

Yet  the  admiration  which  his  biographers  bestow 
on  his  finance  is  misplaced.  It  seems  to  have  been 
chiefly  in  his  native  March  of  Ancona  that  he  granted 
relief  from  the  heavy  taxes  and  imposts  of  his  prede- 
cessor; the  Papal  States  generally  were  still  ruinously 
taxed,  even  in  the  necessaries  of  life.  His  hoarding  of 
specie,  partly  for  excellent  but  partly  for  visionary 
purposes,  injured  commerce;  and  such  measures  as  his 
prohibition  of  the  sale  of  landed  property  to  foreigners 
were  short-sighted.  The  rise  of  the  Papal  income, 
which  enabled  him  to  store  4,500,000  scudi  (about 
8,000,000  dollars)  in  five  years,  besides  spending  large 
sums  on  public  works,  was  chiefly  due  to  deplorable 
methods.  The  income  from  the  issue  of  indulgences 
had  now  fallen  very  low — it  had  not  wholly  ceased,  as 

'  Btill  Quum  Sicut,  May  28,  1586.  Bull  Quum  Alias,  December  17, 
1585. 


342   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

some  say,  since  they  are  still  issued  in  Spain — and  little 
money  came  from  Spain  or  France.  The  fixed  Papal 
income  had  fallen  to  200,000  scudi  a  year,  and  in  the 
expenditure  of  this  the  friar-pope  made  an  economy  of 
140,000  scudi  a  year  by  reducing  table-charges,  dis- 
missing superfluous  servants,  and  (as  is  often  forgotten) 
giving  to  other  servants  church-benefices  so  that  they 
needed  no  salary.  The  result  was  still  far  too  small  for 
the  creation  of  a  fund,  and  Sixtus  sold  honours  and 
offices  as  flagrantly  as  any  Pope  had  done  since  Boniface 
IX.  He  sold  positions  which  had  never  been  sold 
before,  and  he  created  new  marketable  titles.  He 
debased  the  coinage  and  imposed  a  tax  on  money- 
lenders. He  carried  to  a  remarkable  extent  the  new 
Papal  system  of  Monti. ^  He  withdrew  offices  which 
Gregory  XHI.  had  sold,  and  transferred  them  to  higher 
bidders;  and  he  must  have  known  how  the  officials 
would  recoup  themselves. 

By  these  means  he  raised  his  hoard,  which  seems  to 
have  been  gathered  for  some  visionary  grand  campaign 
against  the  Protestants  and  the  Turks.  We  at  once 
recall  Julius  II.,  but  it  is  a  comparison  which  the  work 
of  Sixtus  V.  cannot  sustain ;  he  was  not  so  great  a  ruler 
as  Julius,  and  he  fell  on  less  prosperous  times.  I  must 
add,  however,  that  part  of  his  reserve  fund  was  de- 
stined for  practical  uses.  In  1586  famine  and  Turks 
and  pirates  caused  grave  distress  in  Italy.  Sixtus  did 
not  even  then  abolish  his  heavy  taxes  on  the  necessaries 


'  Recent  Popes  had  established  what  was,  in  effect,  a  system  of  life 
assurance.  A  large  money-payment  secured  an  income  for  life  out  of 
the  proceeds  of  certain  taxes.  Sixtus  multiplied  these  Monti  (as  the 
funds  were  called)  in  order  to  obtain  a  large  sum  of  money  at  once,  and 
he  thus  mortgaged  the  resources  of  the  Holy  Sec.  Rankc,  whose  chap- 
ters on  Sixtus  arc  amongst  his  best,  heavily  censures  the  Pope's  finance. 


Sixtus  V.  and  the  New  Church        343 

of  life  and  the  means  of  distributing  them,  but  he  bought 
100,000  crowns'  worth  of  corn  in  Sicily,  fixed  the  price 
of  flour  and  punished  unjust  dealers,  and  set  about 
collecting  a  fund  of  a  million  scudi  to  meet  such  emer- 
gencies. He  was  not  economist  enough  to  see  the 
roots  of  the  evil,  and  fair,  fertile  Italy  continued  to 
suffer  under  the  unhappy  Papal  system. 

The  Pope's  tenderness  to  the  Jews  was  part  of  his 
crude  financial  policy.  A  Portuguese  Jew,  who  had 
fled  from  the  Inquisition,  was  his  chief  fiscal  adviser, 
and  Sixtus  interpreted  in  the  most  genial  manner  the 
current  teaching  of  theologians,  that,  since  the  Jews 
were  irreparably  damned  on  a  greater  coimt,  they 
might  lend  money  at  interest,  and  the  Papacy  might 
tax  their  wealth.  Baron  Huebner,  in  a  moment  of 
unusual  candour,  corrects  some  of  the  less  discriminat- 
ing biographers:  Sixtus,  he  says,  "protected  the  Jews 
in  order  to  exploit  them."'  Pius  V.  had  expelled  the 
Jews  from  all  parts  of  the  Papal  States  except  Rome 
and  the  March  of  Ancona,  and  Sixtus,  by  his  constitu- 
tion HebrcBorum  Gens,  cancelled  the  restriction  and 
ordered  Christians  to  treat  the  Jews  and  their  syna- 
gogues with  respect.  We  feel  that  interest  led  Sixtus 
on  to  a  more  human  feeling.  He  dispensed  the  unhappy 
Jews  from  wearing  the  odious  yellow  dress  which  Chris- 
tian princes  and  prelates  imposed  on  them,  and  for  a 
few  years,  in  that  one  corner  of  Europe,  they  enjoyed 
the  life  of  human  beings. 

Sixtus  was  less  lenient  to  the  Jesuits  than  to  the  Jews. 
The  primitive  fervour  of  the  Society  was  already 
dimmed  by  prosperity  or  perverted  by  casuistry,  and 
complaints  came  to  Rome  from  all  parts.  Having  been  a 
Franciscan  monk,  Sixtus  was  not  well  disposed  toward 

'  I-.  349. 


344   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

the  new  congregation,  which  had  aroused  the  hostility 
of  the  older  religious  bodies.  He  used  to  observe,  in 
his  grim,  meditative  way:  "Who  are  these  men  who 
make  us  bow  our  heads  at  the  mention  of  their  name?" 
He  referred  to  the  Catholic  practice  of  inclining  the 
head  at  the  mention  of  the  name  of  Jesus,  but  he  dis- 
liked the  whole  constitution  of  the  Society  and  resented 
the  privileges  it  had  won  from  his  predecessors.  A  pro- 
longed quarrel  of  the  worldly  and  degenerate  Jesuits 
of  Spain  with  General  Acquaviva  gave  him  an  oppor- 
tunity to  intervene,  and  he  ordered  an  inquiry  into 
their  rules.  In  1590  he  announced  that  he  would  alter 
the  name  and  the  constitutions  of  the  Society.  Ac- 
quaviva stirred  such  Catholic  monarchs  as  were  docile 
to  his  brethren  to  petition  the  Pope  in  their  favour, 
but  Sixtus  was  not  prepared  to  listen  to  the  suggestions, 
in  ecclesiastical  affairs,  of  worldly  princes.  Acquaviva 
then  persuaded  Cardinal  Carafa,  to  whom  the  inquiry 
had  been  entrusted,  to  prolong  his  inquiry,  and  it  be- 
came a  race  between  the  failing  energy  of  the  Pope  and 
the  intrigues  of  the  Jesuits.  Rome  witnessed  the 
contest  with  the  interest  it  had  once  bestowed  on  the 
chariot-races  of  the  Blues  and  the  Greens.  The  inquiry 
was  transferred  to  other  prelates,  and,  when  these  also 
were  suborned,  Sixtus  peremptorily  ordered  Acquaviva 
to  request  that  the  name  of  the  Society  should  be 
changed.  The  petition  was  reluctantly  made,  the 
Bull  authorizing  the  change  of  name  was  drafted  and 
— Sixtus  V.  died  before  he  put  his  name  to  it.  In  the 
circumstances  it  was  inevitably  whispered  that  Jesuit 
poison  had  ended  the  Pope's  life,  but  the  legend  was  as 
superfluous  as  it  was  familiar.^ 

The  rest  of  the  Pope's  administrative  work  must  be 

'  See  the  author's  Candid  History  of  the  Jesuits  (1913),  pp.  110-113. 


Sixtus  V.  and  the  New  Church        345 

briefly  recorded  before  we  pass  to  the  consideration  of 
his  poHtical  activity.  He  attempted  to  restrict  the 
prodigaHty  of  the  Romans  in  dress,  food,  funeral  and 
wedding  expenses,  etc.,  but  this  sumptuary  legislation^ 
was  not  enforced.  He  found  general  and  disgraceful 
laxity  in  the  convents  of  nuns,  and  enacted  a  death- 
penalty  against  offenders:  the  same  penalty  he,  with 
his  habitual  truculence,  imposed  for  cheating  at  cards 
or  dice.  He  directed  the  police  to  cleanse  Rome  of 
prostitutes  and  astrologers,  reformed  the  prisons,* 
made  provision  for  widows  and  orphans,  pressed  the 
redemption  of  captives,^  and  constructed  ten  galleys 
for  the  defence  of  the  Italian  coast  against  the  Turks 
and  pirates.  He  cleared  of  debt  the  Roman  University 
(Sapienza)  and  restored  it  to  its  full  activity.  He 
engaged  Fontana  to  crown  St.  Peter's  with  its  long- 
deferred  cupola,  and  threw  such  energy  into  the  work 
that  he  almost  completed  in  twenty-two  months  a  task 
which  the  builders  expected  to  occupy  ten  years.  He, 
with  equal  vigour,  set  up  the  obelisks  in  front  of  St. 
Peter's,  reconstructed  the  Lateran  Palace  in  part,  and 
restored  the  columns  of  Trajan  and  Antoninus ;  though, 
in  a  naive  desire  to  express  the  triumph  of  Christianity 
over  Paganism,  he  put  statues  of  Peter  and  Paul  on 
the  ancient  Roman  pedestals.  '*  He  also  set  up  a  press 
in  the  Vatican  Library,  which  he  restored  and  decorated, 

'Bull  Cum  Unoquoque,  January  i,  1586. 

*  Bull  Qug(X  Ordini,  1589.  J  Bull  Cum  Benigno,  1585. 

<  This  edifying  mood  of  the  Pope  might  have  been  fatal  to  the  ancient 
Roman  remains  if  he  had  enjoyed  a  lengthy  Pontificate.  When  the 
cardinals  timidly  curbed  his  iconoclasm,  he  replied  that  he  would  de- 
stroy the  uglier  of  the  pagan  monuments  and  restore  the  remainder. 
Among  these  "uglier"  monuments  were  the  Septizonium  of  Severus,  the 
surviving  part  of  which  he  actually  demolished,  and  the  tomb  of  Caecilia 
Metella! 


346  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

and  from  this  he  issued  the  Latin  version  of  the  Bible 
which  the  Council  of  Trent  had  ordered,  as  well  as  the 
works  of  St,  Ambrose  and  St.  Bonaventure. 

The  magnitude  of  this  domestic  program  and  the 
vigour  of  the  sexagenarian  Pope  are  enhanced  when 
we  further  learn  that  his  brief  Pontificate  was,  as  usual, 
occupied  with  grave  political  problems.  With  Ger- 
man affairs  the  Papacy  had  now  little  concern,  but  we 
must  record  that  Sixtus  permitted  some  of  the  Catholic 
bishops  to  allow  the  laity  to  communicate  in  both  kinds. 
To  England  he  devoted  more  attention,  though  his 
violent  and  undiplomatic  methods  only  made  worse  the 
position  of  the  Catholics  in  that  country.  Mary 
Stuart  contrived  to  write  to  him,  after  she  had  been 
condemned,  and  he  spoke  of  Elizabeth  to  the  cardinals 
as  "the  English  Jezabel."  He  urged  Henry  III.  to 
intercede  for  Mary  and  himself  wrote  a  defence  of  her. 
When  she  was  executed,  he  spurred  Philip  I.  in  his 
designs  against  England  and  promised  him  500,000 
florins  when  his  fleet  reached  England  and  a  further 
half  million  when  the  Spaniards  occupied  London. 
When  an  English  spy  was  detected  at  Rome,  Sixtus 
ordered  his  tongue  to  be  cut  out  and  his  hand  struck 
off  before  he  was  beheaded.  In  defiance  of  his  own 
decree  he  bestowed  the  cardinalate  on  William  Allen, 
and  he  directed  Allen  to  translate  (for  distribution  in 
England)  the  Bull  in  which  he  enumerated  the  dark 
crimes  of  Elizabeth,  renewed  the  sentence  of  excom- 
munication against  her,  and  declared  her  subjects  re- 
leased from  their  allegiance.  These  measures,  which 
only  increased  the  sufferings  of  the  Catholics,  betray 
again  the  limitation  of  the  Pope's  vigorous  intelligence, 
and,  when  the  Armada  sank,  he  turned  from  Spain  to 
France  and  realized  the  futility  of  his  policy. 


Sixtus  V.  and  the  New  Church        347 

The  chief  poHtical  problem  was,  however,  the  atti- 
tude of  Rome  toward  the  rival  Catholic  Powers,  Spain 
and  France,  and  the  less  important  action  of  Sixtus 
in  Venice  (which,  as  a  bulwark  against  the  Protestant 
north,  he  sought,  in  spite  of  his  old  grievances,  to  con- 
ciliate), Savoy  (where  he  compelled  the  Duke  to  re- 
frain from  appointing  bishops),  Besangon  (where  he 
forced  upon  the  reluctant  chapter  a  friar-friend  whom 
he  had  made  Archbishop),  Belgium  (where  he  demanded 
a  truce  between  the  University  and  the  Jesuits),  and 
Switzerland  (where  he  attempted  in  vain  to  restrain 
the  secular  authorities),  need  not  be  considered  at 
length.  The  French  problem,  complicated  by  the 
ambition  of  Spain,  might  have  given  anxious  hours  to 
a  more  astute  statesman  than  Sixtus,  and  we  shall 
hardly  expect  a  man  with  so  little  subtlety  to  reach  a 
distinguished  solution  of  it. 

The  ineptness  of  Catherine  de'  Medici  and  the  folly 
and  profligacy  of  her  diseased  son,  Henry  HI.,  had 
brought  France  to  a  dangerous  pass.  Henry  of  Guise 
coveted  the  throne,  under  a  pretence  of  zeal  for  the 
Church:  Henry  of  Navarre  grimly  awaited  his  natural 
succession  to  it :  and  Philip  of  Spain  dreamed  of  annex- 
ing France,  as  well  as  England,  to  his  swollen  dominion. 
The  Spanish  representative  at  Rome,  Count  Olivarez, 
who  nourished  a  secret  disdain  of  the  peasant-Pope, 
urged  Sixtus  to  eliminate  Henry  of  Navarre  from  the 
competition  by  excommunication,  for  having  relapsed 
to  the  Protestant  creed,  and,  on  September  5,  1585, 
Sixtus  issued  against  him  and  the  Prince  of  Conde 
the  Bull  Ab  Immejiso.  Henry  of  Navarre  retorted 
cheerfully  that  the  Pope  was  himself  a  heretic,  and 
Henry  HI.  angrily  drove  the  Pope's  new  Nuncip  from 
France;  to  which   Sixtus  retorted  by  expelling  from 


34^   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Rome  Henry's  representative,  the  Marquis  Pisani,  To 
the  great  delight  of  PhiHp  and  the  Catholic  League, 
Henry  IH.,  feeble  and  distracted,  humbly  submitted, 
and  was  compelled  to  put  pressure  on  the  remaining 
Protestants.  Sixtus,  in  fact,  promised  Henry  a  Span- 
ish army  from  the  Netherlands  to  assist  in  coercing 
the  Huguenots,  and  urged  him  to  co-operate  with 
Philip  and  with  the  League  (under  Guise).  In  his 
exclusive,  and  entirely  natural,  concern  for  the  ortho- 
doxy of  the  country,  Sixtus  failed  to  understand  in  any 
degree  its  peculiar  political  condition  or  the  utterly 
selfish  designs  of  Guise  and  of  Philip.  He  was  impelling 
the  country  toward  civil  war. 

In  1587  the  Germans  invaded  France,  and  Henry  of 
Navarre  in  turn  confronted  the  troops  of  the  League. 
Some  small  initial  victories  of  the  League  led  the  Pope 
to  congratulate  the  Duke  of  Guise  in  the  most  extrava- 
gant language,  and  it  was  only  the  fear  of  exasperating 
Philip  that  restrained  him  from  bestowing  on  the  Duke's 
son  the  hand  of  one  of  his  grand-nieces.  One  cannot 
suppose  that  Sixtus  failed  to  see  that  Guise  had  ambi- 
tion, but  he  showed  little  penetration  of  character  in 
admonishing  the  Duke  to  recover  Paris  for  Henry  III. 
and  to  assist  that  monarch  to  set  up  the  Inquisition  in 
France  and  exterminate  heresy.  The  Nuncio's  letters 
show  that  he  was,  under  the  Pope's  instructions,  ab- 
sorbed in  a  futile  effort  to  reconcile  the  Duke  and 
the  King,  and  it  is  said  that  Sixtus  angrily  advised  the 
effeminate  monarch  either  to  make  a  friend  of  Guise 
or  to  destroy  him.  Even  Henry  III.  showed  more 
appreciation  of  the  political  situation. 

Sixtus  turned  impatiently  toward  Spain  and  encour- 
aged the  designs  of  Philip.  On  July  15,  1588,  he 
signed  a  treaty  with  the  League  and  Spain,  and  the  new 


Sixtus  V.  and  the  New  Church        349 

alliance  promised  the  complete  eradication  of  heresy 
from  France.  The  failure  of  the  Armada  and  the 
Pope's  habitual  distrust  of  Philip  clouded  the  alliance 
for  a  time,  but  Henry  III.  was  not  willing  to  accept  the 
Pope's  terms  for  a  transfer  of  his  affections.  Sixtus  was 
especially  eager  to  have  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of 
Trent  published  in  France.  To  this  the  Gallican  clergy 
objected,  and  Henry  himself  declared  that  he  would 
publish  them  only  "salvis  juribus  regis  et  regni": 
a  phrase  w^hich  Sixtus,  to  use  his  own  words,  "cursed." 
Even  when,  to  the  Pope's  extreme  anger,  Henry  had 
the  Duke  and  the  Cardinal  of  Guise  assassinated,  Sixtus 
remained  too  irresolute  to  derive  advantage  from  the 
King's  remorse  or  apprehension,  though  the  Spaniards 
and  the  League  gained  ground  at  Rome.  Henry 
HI.,  indeed,  entered  into  alliance  with  the  Protestant 
Henry  against  the  League,  and  Sixtus  was  content 
to  issue  a  fresh  threat  of  excommunication  against  the 
Huguenot. 

But  the  assassination  of  the  King  in  August  (1589) 
simplified  the  situation,  and  Sixtus  definitely  alHed 
himself  with  Spain  and  the  League  against  Henry  IV. : 
a  very  natural,  but  equally  impolitic,  decision.  Venice 
recognized  Henry,  and  the  Pope  at  first  recalled  his 
Nuncio  from  Venice  and  then,  hearing  the  success  of 
the  new  King,  ordered  him  to  return.  Sixtus  was 
beginning  to  appreciate  the  situation,  and,  when  the 
Duke  of  Luxemburg  came  to  Rome  to  tell  of  Henry's 
willingness  to  reconsider  his  religious  position,  he  was 
amiably  received.  The  Spaniards  made  a  last  violent 
struggle,  and  even  threatened  to  arraign  the  Pope  for 
heresy  before  a  General  Council,  but  Sixtus  now  saw 
his  way  clearly.  Throughout  the  year  1590  he  braved 
the  threats  of  the  Spaniards  and  watched  the  progress 


350  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

of  Henry  IV.,  but  the  struggle  against  Spaniards  and 
Jesuits  was  too  exacting  for  a  man  of  his  years  and  he 
succumbed  to  fever  on  August  24th. 

Sixtus  must  imhesitatingly  be  included  among  the 
great  Popes,  but  it  is  perplexing  to  read,  as  one  often 
does,  that  he  was  "one  of  the  greatest  of  the  Popes." 
The  work  he  accomplished  in  five  years  is  far  greater 
than  most  of  the  Popes  achieved,  or  would  have 
achieved,  in  twenty  years,  and  at  least  the  greater  part 
of  his  reform-work  in  Rome  and  Italy  was  of  consider- 
able value.  Yet  even  here  we  must  not  overlook  his 
defects:  he  transgressed  his  own  regulations  when  he 
would  gratify  his  affections,  he  enforced  reforms  with 
harshness  and  violence,  and  he  greatly  lessened  the  value 
of  his  economic  work  by  hoarding  a  vast  sum  for  the 
purpose  (apparently)  of  conducting  a  visionary  grand 
campaign  against  Turks  and  heretics.  His  political 
attitude  was,  as  I  have  shown,  injudicious  and  irreso- 
lute. Both  in  character  and  statesmanship  he  falls 
far  short  of  the  greater  Popes,  and  it  is,  perhaps,  some 
indication  of  the  evil  plight  of  the  Church  that  Sixtus 
V.  should  be  the  ablest  man  it  could  produce  in  a  cen- 
tury of  grave  and  persistent  danger. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

BENEDICT  XIV:   THE   SCHOLAR-POPE 

THE  seventeen  Popes  who  occupied  the  Vatican 
between  Sixtus  V.  and  Benedict  XIV.  do  not  call 
for  individual  notice.  With  common  integrity  of  life 
and  general  mediocrity  of  intelligence  they  guarded  and 
administered  their  lessened  inheritance.  A  few  frag- 
ments of  the  lost  provinces  were  regained — Ferrara 
and  Urbino  were  reunited  to  the  Papal  States,  and 
Protestantism  was  crushed  in  southern  Germany  and 
Poland — but  the  general  situation  was  unchanged. 
The  Papal  conception  of  European  life,  the  conviction 
that  heresy  must  and  would  be  only  a  temporary  diver- 
sion of  the  minds  of  men,  was  definitely  overthrown, 
and  the  Church  of  Rome  became  one  of  various  flourish- 
ing branches  of  the  Christian  Church.  The  interest  of 
the  historian  passes  from  the  personalities  of  the  Popes 
to  the  movements  of  thought  which  herald  or  prepare 
the  next  great  revolution. 

In  regard  to  that  specific  development  of  European 
thought  which  we  call  the  birth  of  science  we  are,  per- 
haps, apt  to  misread  its  earlier  stages  because  we  find 
it  in  its  final  stage  so  destructive  of  old  traditions.  The 
Popes  of  the  seventeenth  century  are  too  much  flat- 
tered when  they  are  credited  with  a  distinct  perception 
of  the  menace  of  science  and  a  resolute  opposition  to 

351 


352   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

it.  Properly  speaking,  they  had  no  attitude  toward 
"science, "  but,  as  the  history  of  science  and  the  fortune 
of  such  men  as  Giordano  Bruno,  GaHlei,  and  Vesalius 
show,  they  resented  and  hampered  departures  from  the 
stock  of  traditional  learning.^  On  the  other  hand, 
the  period  we  are  considering  was  marked  by  the 
phenomenal  material  success  and  the  moral  degenera- 
tion of  the  greatest  force  the  Counter-Reformation  had 
produced — the  Society  of  Jesus.  The  Jesuits  did  far 
more  than  the  Papacy  to  arrest  the  advance  of  Pro- 
testantism and  to  conquer  new  lands  for  the  Church, 
but  the  diplomatic  principles  inherited  from  their 
founder  and  the  desperate  exigencies  of  a  stubborn  war 
led  them  into  a  pernicious  casuistry,  while  prosperity 
led  to  such  relaxation  as  it  had  produced  in  the  old 
religious  bodies.  In  politics  the  new  age  was  charac- 
terized by  the  decay  of  Spain  and  "the  Empire,"  and 
the  rise  of  France,  and  the  increased  power  of  France 
led  to  a  revival  of  the  old  Gallic  defiance,  within  ortho- 
dox limits,  of  the  Papacy,  culminating  in  the  famous 
"Declaration  of  the  Gallican  Clergy"  (1682),  and  to 
the  powerful  lay  movements  which  gathered  round 
Pascal  and  the  Jansenists  or  Voltaire  and  the  phi- 
losophers. Benedict  XIV.  mounted  the  Papal  throne 
in  the  height  of  these  developments,  and  his  attitude  of 

'  Modern  research  has  easily  settled  that  Galilei  was  not  physically 
ill-treated,  and  that  there  was  probably  no  intention  to  carry  out  the 
formal  threat  of  torture.  But  this  refutation  of  the  excesses  of  the 
older  anti-Papal  historians  leaves  the  serious  part  of  the  indictment 
intact.  Galilei  was  forbidden  by  the  Holy  Ofiice  in  1616  to  advance  as  a 
positive  discovery  his  view  of  the  earth's  position.  In  1632,  to  the 
great  indignation  of  Urban  VIII.,  he  disregarded  this  prohibition,  which 
he  thought  a  dead  letter,  and  was  condemned  by  the  Inquisition  as 
"vehemently  suspected  of  heresy."  The  crime  against  culture  is  not 
materially  lessened  by  the  fact  that  the  Inquisition  lodged  the  astrono- 
mer in  its  most  comfortable  rooms. 


Benedict  XIV:  the  Scholar-Pope      353 

compromise  makes  him  one  of  the  most  singular  and 
interesting  Popes  of  the  new  era. 

Prosper©  Lorenzo  Lambertini  was  born  at  Bologna, 
of  good  family,  on  March  31,  1675.  At  the  age  of 
thirteen  he  entered  the  Clementine  College  at  Rome, 
and  with  the  advance  of  years  he  became  a  very  indus- 
trious student  of  law — canon  and  civil — and  history. 
He  took  degrees  in  theology  and  law,  and  was  incor- 
porated in  the  Roman  system  as  Consultor  to  the  Holy 
Office,  Canon  of  St.  Peter's,  and  Prelate  of  the  Roman 
Court.  Successive  Popes  made  the  indefatigable 
scholar  Archbishop  of  Theodosia  in  partibiis,  Archbishop 
of  Ancona  and  Cardinal  (1728),  and  Archbishop  of 
Bologna  (1731).  Lambertini  was  a  rare  type  of  prelate. 
He  did  not,  as  so  many  high-born  prelates  did,  relieve 
the  tedium  of  the  clerical  estate  with  the  hunt,  the 
banquet,  and  the  mistress.  His  episcopal  duties  were 
discharged  with  the  most  rigorous  fidelity,  his  clergy 
were  sedulously  exhorted  to  cultivate  learning  and 
virtue,  and  his  leisure  was  devoted  to  the  composition 
of  erudite  treatises  on  The  Beatification  of  the  Servants 
of  God,  The  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  The  Festivals  of  Our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  Canonical  Questions.  Yet  the 
Cardinal- Archbishop  was  no  ascetic  in  spirit,  and  there 
w^as  much  gossip  about  his  conversation.  He  loved 
Tasso  and  Ariosto  as  much  as  juridical  writings.  He 
liked  witty  society,  and  his  good  stories  circulated 
beyond  the  little  group  of  his  scholarly  friends.  Presi- 
dent de  Brosses  visited  him  at  Bologna  in  1739,  the 
year  before  he  became  Pope,  and  wrote  of  him: 

A  good  fellow,  without  any  airs,  who  told  us  some  very 
good  stories  about  women  {/dies)  or  about  the  Roman  court, 
I  took  care  to  commit  some  of  them  to  memory  and  will  find 


354   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

them  useful.  He  especially  liked  to  tell  or  to  hear  stories 
about  the  Regent  and  his  confidant  Cardinal  Dubois.  He 
used  to  say,  "Tell  me  something  about  this  Cardinal  del 
Bosco."  I  ransacked  my  memory,  and  told  him  all  the 
tales  I  knew.  His  conversation  is  very  pleasant:  he  is  a 
clever  man,  full  of  gaiety  and  well  read.  In  his  speech  he 
makes  use  of  certain  expletive  particles  which  are  not 
cardinalitial.  In  that  and  other  things  he  is  like  Cardinal 
Camus;  for  he  is  otherwise  irreproachable  in  conduct,  very 
charitable,  and  very  devoted  to  his  archiepiscopal  duties. 
But  the  first  and  most  essential  of  his  duties  is  to  go  three 
times  a  week  to  the  Opera.  ^ 

Lambertini's  liberty  and  joviality  of  speech  did  not, 
in  spite  of  his  strict  virtue  and  most  zealous  adminis- 
tration, commend  him  to  the  more  severe  cardinals, 
and  when  Clement  XII.  died,  on  February  6,  1740, 
he  was  not  regarded  as  a  candidate  for  the  Papacy. 
But  the  struggle  of  French,  Spanish,  and  Austrian 
partisans  continued  for  six  months  without  prospect  of 
a  settlement,  and  in  the  intolerable  heat  of  the  summer 
the  cardinals  cast  about,  as  usual,  for  an  outsider. 
Lambertini  had  humorously  recommended  himself 
from  time  to  time.  He  used  to  say.  President  de 
Brosses  reports:  "  If  you  want  a  good  fellow  [coglione— 
a  particularly  gross  word]  choose  me. "  ^     The  Emperor 

^  Lettres  familieres  (1858),  i.,  250-1.  The  President  was  in  Rome 
during  the  conclave  in  the  following  year  and  repeated  that  Lambertini 
was  "licentious  in  speech  but  exemplary  in  conduct"  (ii.,  399).  On  a 
later  page  (439)  he  frankly  describes  the  Pope  as  "indecent  in  speech." 
There  is  a  passage  in  one  of  the  Pope's  later  letters  to  Cardinal  Tencin 
which  may  illustrate  his  censure.  Benedict  tells  the  Cardinal  that  he 
has  bought  a  nude  Venus  for  his  collection,  and  finds  that  the  Prince  and 
Princess  of  Wurttemberg  have,  with  a  diamond  ring,  scratched  their 
names  on  a  part  of  the  statue  which  one  may  not  particularize  as  plainly 
as  the  Pope  does  {Correspondance  de  Benoit  XIV.,  ii.,  268). 

'  Lettres  familihes,  ii.,  439. 


Benedict  XIV:  the  Scholar-Pope      355 

Joseph  II.,  who  did  not  want  an  inflexible  Pope,  sup- 
ported his  candidature,  and  he  was  assuredly  the  most 
distinguished  of  the  cardinals  to  whom  the  wearied 
voters  now  looked.  He  was  elected  on  August  17th, 
and  he  took  the  name  of  Benedict  XIV. 

He  was  now  sixty-five  years  old :  a  round,  full-faced, 
merry  little  man,  with  piercing  small  eyes  and  an 
obstinate  resolution  to  live  at  peace  with  the  world. 
A  few  years  later,'  he  describes  his  daily  life  to  his 
friend  Cardinal  Tencin.  He  rises  early  and  takes  a  cup 
of  chocolate  and  a  crust.  At  midday  he  has  a  soup,  an 
entree,  a  roast,  and  a  pear:  on  "fast"  days  he  reduces 
himself  to  a  pot-aii-feu  and  a  pear,  but  it  does  not  agree 
with  him  to  observe  the  law  of  abstinence  from  meat, 
and  he  advises  the  cardinals  to  follow  his  example.  In 
the  evening  he  takes  only  a  glass  of  water  with  a  little 
cinnamon,  and  he  retires  very  late.  He  works  hard  all 
day  and  feels  that  he  is  justified  in  seeking  relief  in 
sprightly  conversation.  Indeed,  when  one  surveys  the 
vast  published  series  of  Benedict's  Bulls  (some  of  which 
are  lengthy  and  severe  treatises),  rescripts,  works,  and 
letters,  one  realizes  that  his  industry  was  phenomenal. 
When  he  had  to  condemn  some  volume  of  the  new 
sceptical  literature  which  was  springing  up  in  Europe, 
he  read  it  himself  three  times  and  reflected  long  on  it. 
His  interest  ranged  from  England,  whose  political 
affairs  he  followed  closely,  to  the  mountains  of  Syria 
and  the  missions  of  China.  Every  branch  of  Papal 
administration  had  his  personal  attention.  He  thought 
little  of  the  cardinals,  and  often  pours  genial  irony 
on  them  in  his  innumerable  letters.  Of  his  two  prede- 
cessors, Benedict  XIII.  "had  not  the  least  idea  of 
government,"   and   Clement  XII.  "passed  his  life  in 

'  September  29,  1745. 


356   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

conversation, "  and  "it  is  with  the  oxen  from  this  stable 
[the  cardinals  promoted  by  them]  that  we  have  to  work 
today."'  In  finance,  politics,  administration,  liturgy, 
and  all  other  respects  he  had  inherited  a  formidable  task, 
and  he  discharged  it  in  such  wise  that  he  died  at  peace 
with  all  except  his  Roman  reactionaries.  The  Catholic 
rulers  deeply  appreciated  him.  Frederick  of  Prussia 
had  a  genial  regard  for  him.  Horace  Walpole  celebrated 
his  virtues  in  Latin  verse,  and  one  of  the  Pitts  treasured 
a  bust  of  him.  Voltaire,  through  Cardinal  Acquaviva, 
presented  his  Mahomet  to  him  in  1746,  and  the  amiable 
Pope,  quite  innocent  of  the  satire  on  Christianity,  wrote 
to  tell  Voltaire  how  he  had  successfully  defended  his 
Latin  verses.^ 


'  Letter  to  Tencin  August  i,  1753  (ii.,  282). 

^  The  correspondence  is  reproduced  in  Artaud  de  Montor's  Histoire  des 
Souverains  Pontifes  (1849),  vii.,  79.  Benedict  was  severely  censured  by 
the  pious,  and  he  declared  to  Cardinal  Tencin  that  he  "did  not  find  it 
clear  that  Voltaire  was  a  stranger  to  the  faith  "  (i.,  246).  The  biography 
of  Benedict,  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  Popes,  is  still  to  be  written. 
F.  X.  Kraus,  in  his  edition  of  Benedict's  letters,  reproduces  fragments  of 
a  pretentious  Latin  biography  by  a  contemporary,  Scarselli,  and  M. 
Guarnacci  has  a  sketch  in  his  VitcB  PoJitificum  Romanorum  (1751,  vol. 
ii.,  col.  487-94).  These  relate  only  to  his  earlier  years.  A.  Sandini 
{VitcB  Pontificum  Romanorum,  1754)  has  only  three  pages  on  Benedict, 
and  the  anonymous  Vie  du  Pape  Benoit  XIV.  (1783 — really  written  by 
Cardinal  Caraccioli)  is  not  critical.  The  biographical  sketches  in 
Artaud  de  Montor  and  Ranke  are  quite  inadequate.  But  the  biographer 
has  now  a  rich  material  in  Benedict's  Bulls  (complete  Bullarium,  13 
vols.,  1826  and  1827),  works  (chief  edition,  17  vols.,  1839-1846,  and 
three  further  works  edited  by  Heiner  in  1904),  and  letters.  Of  the 
latter  the  best  editions  are  those  of  F.  X.  Kraus  {Brief e  Benedicts  XIV. 
an  den  Canonicus  Pier  Francesco  Peggi,  1884),  Morani  ("Lettere  di 
Benedetto  XIV.  all'  arcidiacono  Innocenzo  Storani"  in  the  Archivio 
Storico  per  le  Marche  e  per  I'Umbria,  1885),  Fresco  ("Lettere  inedite  di 
Benedetto  XIV.  al  Cardinale  Angelo  Maria  Querini"  in  the  Nuovo 
Archivio  Veneto,  1909,  tomo  xviii.,  pp.  5-93,  and  xix,  pp.  159-215), 
"Lettere  inedite  di  Benedetto  XIV.  al  Cardinale  F.  Tamburini"  in  the 


Benedict  XIV:  the  Scholar-Pope      357 

Benedict's  immediate  predecessor,  Clement  XII., 
an  elderly  disciplinarian  whose  strength  was  not  equal 
to  his  pretensions,  had  left  the  internal  and  foreign 
affairs  of  the  Quirinal — the  Popes  now  dwelt  chiefly 
in  that  palace — in  a  condition  of  strain  and  disorder, 
nor  was  Benedict's  Secretary  of  State,  Cardinal  Valenti, 
the  man  to  relieve  the  Pope  of  the  work  of  reform. 
Choiseul,  who  was  then  the  French  representative  at 
Rome,  describes  Valenti  as  very  able  but  very  lazy: 
a  man  of  great  charm,  especially  to  ladies,  and  easy 
morals.  Yet  the  treasury  was  empty,  and  the  finances 
were  shockingly  disorganized.  Although  Clement  XII. 
had  introduced  the  lottery  to  support  his  extravagant 
expenditure,  the  Papal  income  in  1739  fell  short  of  the 
expenses  by  200,000  crowns  a  year,  and  the  Camera 
owed  between  fifty  and  sixty  million  crowns — President 
de  Brosses  says  380,000,000  francs — to  the  Monti,  or 
funds  out  of  which  the  Popes  paid  life-incomes.  Smug- 
gling was  so  general,  even  among  ambassadors  and 
cardinals,  that  half  the  Papal  revenue  was  lost.  Car- 
dinals Acquaviva  and  Albani  each  granted  immunity 
from  excise  to  four  thousand  traders :  so  Benedict  wrote 
to  Tencin  in  1743.  A  third  of  the  population  of  Rome 
consisted  of  ecclesiastics  who  lived  on  the  Papal  system, 
and  a  third  were  foreigners  of  no  greater  financial  value ; 
while  the  natives  could  so  easily  obtain  food  at  the 
innumerable  monasteries,  or  by  begging,  that  there  was 
little  incentive  to  industry. 

Benedict  XIV.  had  no  financial  capacity,  but  the 
desperate  and  ever  worsening  condition  of  the  treasury 
spurred  him  to  work.     He  restricted  the  immunities 

Archivio  delta  R.  Societd  Romana  di  Storia  P atria,  vol.  xxxiv.  (191 1), 
pp.  35-73,  and  E.  de  Heeckeren  (Conespondance  de  BenoUXIV.,  2  vols., 
1912). 


35S   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

from  excise,  cut  down  the  extravagant  payment  of  the 
troops,  and  severely  curtailed  the  number  of  his  ser- 
vants. In  a  few  years  he  had  a  surplus,  which  he 
divided  among  the  impoverished  nobles.  He  then 
reduced  the  taxes,  had  new  factories  built,  and  encour- 
aged the  introduction  of  new  methods  into  agriculture. 
His  zeal  in  suppressing  "usury"  was  not  so  fortunate, 
but  he  restored  the  Papal  finances  to  such  a  degree  that 
he  could  at  length  indulge  his  cultural  tastes.  Sandini 
gives  a  list  of  the  monuments  he  restored  at  Rome — in- 
cluding the  new  fagade  with  which  he  disfigured  Sta. 
Maria  Maggiore — and  we  know  from  his  letters  that  he 
was  assiduous  in  collecting  classical  statues  and  fine 
books  for  the  Roman  galleries  and  libraries.  He 
founded  four  academies  at  Rome — for  the  study  of 
Roman  history  and  antiquities,  Christian  history  and 
antiquities,  the  history  of  the  Councils,  and  liturgy — 
and  once  in  each  week  presided,  at  the  Quirinal,  over  a 
sitting  of  each  academy.  To  the  Roman  university 
(Sapienza)  he  added  chairs  of  chemistry,  mathematics, 
and  art,  and  he  pressed  in  every  way  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  the  clergy.  In  1750  he  appointed  a  woman 
teacher,  Maria  Gaetana  d'Agnesi,  of  mathematics  at 
Bologna  University,  and  wrote  her  a  gracious  letter 
commending  the  ambition  of  her  sex. 

Jansenists  and  philosophers  were  now  fiercely  expos- 
ing the  weaknesses  of  Papal  culture,  and  Benedict,  who 
freely  criticized  the  errors  of  his  predecessors,  attempted 
some  revision  of  the  mass  of  legends  which  had  been 
accepted  by  the  Church.  In  1741  he  appointed  a 
commission  to  revise  the  Breviary,  but  the  extensive 
alterations  they  proposed  to  make  in  the  lives  of  the 
saints  alarmed  the  reactionaries.  On  April  26,  1743, 
we  find  Benedict  wearily  complaining  to  Tencin  of  the 


Benedict  XIV:  the  Scholar-Pope      359 

difficulty  of  reform:  "There  is  now  all  over  the  world 
such  a  disdain  of  the  Holy  See  that — I  will  not  say  the 
protest  of  a  bishop,  a  city,  or  a  nation — but  the  opposi- 
tion of  a  single  monk  is  enough  to  thwart  the  most 
salutary  and  most  pious  designs. " '  The  French  clergy 
had  been  compelled  in  1680  and  1736  to  issue  more 
critical  editions  of  the  Breviary,  and  Benedict  wished 
to  provide  one  for  the  universal  Church.  But  the 
bigots  were  too  strong  for  the  Pope  and  the  scheme  of 
reform  lies  in  the  dust  of  the  Vatican  archives,  while 
the  Roman  Breviary  still  contains  legends  of  the  most 
remarkable  character.  In  reforming  the  Martyrology 
(1748)  the  Pope  was  more  successful,  and  he  published 
a  new  Ceremonial  for  Bishops  (1752).  He  also  pub- 
lished an  indult  permitting  any  diocese  that  cared  to 
reduce  the  number  of  Church-festivals.  The  number 
of  days  on  which  men  rested  from  work  had  become  a 
scandal,  and  many  complaints  had  reached  the  Holy 
See.  Benedict's  indult  was  gradually  adopted  by  entire 
nations. 

Of  far  greater  interest  is  Benedict's  attitude  toward 
what  we  may  call  foreign  affairs,  and  in  this  we  discover 
again  the  more  genial  side  of  his  character.  Those  who 
had  known  the  different  aspects  of  the  Pope's  person- 
ality— the  punctilious  learning  of  the  ecclesiastic  and 
the  bonhomie  of  the  man — must  have  wondered  how  he 
would  confront  the  hereditary  problems  of  the  Papacy. 
Benedict  at  once  made  it  plain  that  his  policy  would  be 
one  of  deliberate  and  judicious  compromise.  Anxious 
though  he  was,  especially  in  view  of  the  Italian  ambi- 
tions of  Maria  Theresa,  about  his  temporal  possessions, 
he  placed  his  spiritual  power  and  responsibility  in  the 
foreground,  and  on  temporal  matters  he  made  more 

•  I.,  49- 


360    Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

concessions  than  any  Pope  of  equal  wit  and  will  had 
ever  made.  He  was,  he  told  Tencin,  "the  mortal 
enemy  of  secrets  and  useless  mysticism . "  For  disguised 
Jesuits  and  intriguing  Nuncii  he  had  no  employment. 
He  took  court  after  court,  with  which  his  predecessor 
had  embroiled  the  Papacy,  and  came  to  an  agree- 
ment which  almost  invariably  satisfied  them ;  and  in  the 
war  of  the  Spanish  succession,  when  Spanish  and  Aus- 
trian troops  in  turn  violated  his  territory,  he  remained 
strictly  neutral. 

The  chief  problem  in  France  was  the  conflict  of  the 
Jesuits  and  the  Jansenists,  which  was  complicated  by 
a  revival  of  the  Gallican  spirit  that  put  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  Papal  interference.  The  Bull  Unigenitus, 
with  which  Clement  XI.  had  sought  to  extinguish  the 
controversy,  had  increased  the  disorder,  and  the  zealots 
pressed  the  Pope  to  intervene.  Parlement  would  have 
resented  his  interference,  and  it  was  not  until  1755,  when 
the  Assembly  of  the  Clergy  failed  to  find  a  solution,  that 
Louis  XV.  asked  the  Pope  to  make  a  further  declara- 
tion. The  credit  of  his  moderate  Encyclical'  is  not 
wholly  due  to  him.  The  French  asked  him  to  refrain 
from  pressing  the  Unigenitus  as  a  standard  of  faith  and 
merely  to  demand  external  respect  for  it.  This  agreed 
with  the  Pope's  moderate  disposition,  but  the  Jesuits 
and  other  zealots  at  Rome  were  enraged,  and  Choiseul — 
without  Benedict's  knowledge,  of  course — made  exten- 
sive use  of  bribery  to  win  the  College  of  Cardinals. 
Benedict's  letters  reflect  his  weariness  between  the 
antagonistic  parties  and  frequently  express  that  he  is 

'  Ex  omnibus  Chrisliani  orhis,  Oct.  16,  1756.  It  prescribes  silence  on 
the  disputed  issues  and  leaves  it  to  confessors  to  determine  whether 
their  penitents  are  so  wilfully  rebellious  against  the  Bull  Unigenitus  as 
to  be  excluded  from  the  sacraments. 


Benedict  XIV:  the  Scholar-Pope      361 

willing  to  respect  Gallican  susceptibilities  to  any  extent 
short  of  a  surrender  of  the  faith.  A  draft  of  the  Encycli- 
cal was  submitted  to  the  French  court  before  it  was 
published.  Both  the  Jesuits  and  the  lawyers  attacked  it, 
but  the  Parlement  was  won  to  the  King  by  an  attempt 
on  his  life  and  the  Jesuits  soon  found  all  their  energy 
needed  to  defend  their  existence. 

With  Spain  the  Pope  concluded  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  Concordats  in  Papal  history.  There  had 
gradually  been  established  a  custom  by  which  the 
Papacy  appointed  to  all  benefices  which  fell  vacant 
during  eight  months  of  the  year,  and  the  bishops  and 
their  chapters  appointed  to  vacant  benefices  during  the 
remaining  third  of  the  year.  The  court  had  the  right 
of  appointment  only  to  benefices  in  Granada  and  the 
Indies.  As  a  natural  result,  Spanish  ecclesiastics 
crowded  to  Rome,  and  it  was  estimated  that  the  Dataria 
derived  from  them  about  250,000  crowns  a  year.  Spain 
resented  the  arrangement,  but  the  clerical  population 
of  Rome  clung  tenaciously  to  it.  Benedict  in  1751 
entered  into  secret  negotiations  with  Spain,  and  con- 
trived to  keep  them  secret  until  1753,  when  he  startled 
and  irritated  Rome  by  publishing  his  famous  Concordat. 
By  this  he  granted  the  Spanish  King  the  right  to  nomi- 
nate to  all  except  fifty- two  benefices  in  Spain  and  Amer- 
ica. The  cardinals  bitterly  complained  that  they  had 
not  been  consulted,  while  the  officials  deplored  the 
abandonment  of  Papal  prestige  and  the  cessation  of  so 
much  profitable  employment.  Benedict  had,  however, 
made  a  shrewd  bargain  with  Ferdinand  VI.  The  King 
had  to  pay  a  capital  sum  of  1,143,330  crowns,  which,  at 
an  interest  of  three  per  cent.,  would  cover  the  yearly 
loss  to  the  Curia.  At  a  later  date  the  Pope  released 
the   Spanish  Infanta  from  the  dignity  of  cardinal,  yet 


3^2   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

permitted  him  to  retain  a  large  part  of  his  clerical 
income. 

A  similar  agreement  ended  the  long  friction  with 
Portugal  and  (in  1740)  gave  John  V.  the  right  to  present 
to  all  the  episcopal  sees  and  abbeys  in  his  dominions; 
and  in  1748  the  Pope  further  gratified  the  King  with  the 
title  of  Fidelissimus.  The  King  of  Sardinia  received, 
soon  after  Benedict's  succession,  the  title  of  Vicar  of  all 
the  Papal  fiefs  in  his  dominions  and  the  right,  for  an 
annual  payment  of  2000  crowns,  to  gather  their  reve- 
nues. Naples,  in  turn,  was  pacified,  after  many  years 
of  dangerous  friction.  There  had  been  stern  quarrels 
about  jurisdiction  over  the  clergy,  and  by  a  Concordat 
of  the  year  1741  Benedict  consented  to  the  creation  of  a 
supreme  court,  with  an  equal  number  of  clerical  and  lay 
judges  and  an  ecclesiastical  president,  for  the  trial  of 
such  cases.  With  Venice  the  Pope  was  less  successful. 
The  decaying  Republic  had  a  standing  quarrel  with 
Austria  about  the  patriarchate  of  Aquileia;  Austria, 
which  possessed  part  of  the  territory,  would  not  ac- 
knowledge the  authority  of  the  Venetian  patriarch. 
Benedict  appointed  a  Vicar  for  the  Austrian  section,  and 
Venice,  ever  ready  to  flout  Papal  orders,  drove  the 
Nuncio  from  the  city.  The  Pope  thereupon  divided  the 
province  into  two  archbishoprics,  but  Venice  still  an- 
grily protested  and  the  dispute  remained  unsettled  at 
Benedict's  death. 

Austria  gave  the  Pope  his  most  anxious  hours.  The 
joy  of  Rome  at  the  fidelity  of  southern  Germany  was  in 
the  eighteenth  century  clouded  by  the  growth  of  a 
spirit  akin  to  Gallicanism:  the  spirit  which  would 
presently  be  known  as  Febronianism.  Charles  VI. 
had  in  1740  left  the  Empire  to  his  elder  daughter, 
Maria  Theresa,  and  Spain  had  contested  the  succession 


Benedict  XIV:  the  Scholar-Pope      363 

in  the  hope  of  winning  for  itself  the  provinces  of  Lom- 
bardy  and  Tuscany.  In  the  war  which  followed 
Benedict  took  no  side,  but  the  conflicting  armies  devas- 
tated his  territory  and  approached  very  near  to  Rome. 
His  letters  to  Tencin  reflect  his  distress  and  anxiety, 
no  less  than  his  helplessness.  When  the  war  was  over, 
he  sent  a  representative  to  the  conference  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  where  his  rights  were  endangered  by  the 
contest  of  the  two  ambitious  queens;  Elizabeth  of 
Spain  was  the  last  of  the  Farnese  and  was  disposed  to 
claim  for  her  son  the  principality  which  Paul  III.  had 
wantonly  conferred  on  his  son  Pier  Luigi.  The  chief 
question  that  interested  the  Papacy  was  whether  Don 
Philip  should  receive  the  investiture  of  Parma  and 
Piacenza  from  Rome  or  the  Empress,  and  Benedict  had 
the  satisfaction  of  seeing  it  virtually  settled  in  favour 
of  Rome.  On  Paul  III.  himself,  and  other  nepotist 
Popes,  Benedict  passes  a  very  severe  judgment  in  his 
letters.  For  his  part  he  severely  excluded  his  relatives 
from  Rome,  and  when  a  young  son  of  his  nephew  came 
to  study  at  the  Clementine  College,  he  took  care  that 
the  boy  should  receive  no  particular  favour. 

It  is  one  of  the  remarkable  features  of  Benedict's 
Pontificate  that  he  won  considerable  respect  even  in  the 
Protestant  lands.  Englishmen,  perhaps,  did  not  know, 
as  we  know  from  the  Pope's  letters,  how  deeply  he 
sympathized  with  the  exiled  Stuarts.  "James  III." 
lived  for  some  time  at  Rome  on  a  pension  provided  by 
France,  Spain,  and  the  Papacy,  and  Benedict  had  often 
to  relieve  the  financial  embarrassment  of  the  foolish 
and  extravagant  prince.  His  second  son  became 
Cardinal  York,  and,  in  conferring  the  dignity  on  him^ 
Benedict  declared  that  he  would  be  pleased  to  withdraw 
it  if  ever  Providence  recalled  him  to  the  throne  of  his 


364  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

fathers.  In  spite  of  these  amiable  sympathies,  Benedict 
was  much  appreciated  by  cultivated  Englishmen,  and 
in  1753  he  reconstituted  and  enlarged  the  English 
hierarchy. 

With  Frederic  of  Prussia,  also,  he  had  friendly 
relations.  He  was  the  first  Pope  to  recognize  the  title 
of  "  King  of  Prussia"  assumed  in  170 1  by  the  Electors  of 
Brandenburg,  and  in  this  again  he  overruled  the  opposi- 
tion of  the  cardinals.  In  1744  Frederic  begged  the  Pope 
to  make  Scatfgoch,  a  Breslau  canon  whom  the  King 
liked,  coadjutor  to  the  Bishop  of  Breslau.  Scatfgoch 
talked  with  scandalous  license  about  religion  and  morals ; 
it  was  said  at  Rome  that  he  dipped  his  crucifix  into 
his  wine  to  give  the  Saviour  the  first  drink.  Benedict, 
to  Frederic's  anger,  refused ;  but  three  years  later,  when 
the- bishop  died,  and  the  Nuncio  reported  the  conversion 
of  the  canon,  the  Pope  gratified  Frederic  by  making  him 
bishop.  Frederic  permitted  the  erection  of  a  CathoHc 
chapel  at  Berlin. 

The  new  Catholic  world  beyond  the  seas  made  more 
than  one  claim  on  the  untiring  Pope.  Immediately 
after  his  election  we  find  him  sending  a  Vicar  Apostolic 
to  settle  the  troubles  of  the  Maronites  of  Syria,  and  in 
1744  he  reconciled  and  regulated  the  affairs  of  the 
Greek  Melchites  of  Antioch.  In  the  farther  East  a 
fierce  controversy  still  raged,  both  in  China  and  India, 
regarding  the  heathen  rites  and  practices  which  the 
Jesuit  missionaries  permitted  their  native  converts  to 
retain.  Clement  XL,  Innocent  XIII.,  and  Benedict 
XIII.  had  successively  employed  him,  when  he  was  an 
official  of  the  Curia,  to  prepare  a  verdict  on  these 
"Chinese  and  Malabar  rites,"  but  it  was  reported  that 
the  Jesuits  still  defied  the  orders  of  the  Popes.  In  his 
private  letters  to  Tencin,  Benedict  sternly  condemns  the 


Benedict  XIV:  the  Scholar-Pope      365 

"tergiversations"  of  the  Jesuit  missionaries,  but  in  his 
Papal  pronouncements  he  is  more  cautious.  His  Bulls 
Ex  Quo  Singulari, '  which  puts  an  end  to  the  trouble  in 
China,  and  Omnium  Solicitudinum,^  which  condemns 
the  practices  in  Malabar  (India),  are  scholarly  and 
severe  treatises.  They  hardly  mention  the  Jesuits, 
but  they  leave  no  loophole  for  those  casuistic  mission- 
aries. From  the  other  side  of  the  globe  Benedict  re- 
ceived complaints  that  Christians  were  still  enslaving 
the  American  natives,  on  the  pretext  of  converting 
them,  and  he  renewed  the  prohibition  issued  by  Paul 
III.  and  Urban  VIII. 

From  all  quarters  of  the  globe  Benedict  received 
heated  complaints  about  the  Jesuits.  They  permitted 
the  worship  of  ancestors  in  China,  and  closed  their  eyes 
to  Hindu  charms  and  amulets  in  India.  They  con- 
ducted great  commercial  enterprises  in  North  and 
South  America,  and  struggled  bitterly  against  the 
bishops  in  England.  France  accused  them  of  intensify- 
ing the  domestic  strife  of  its  Church,  and  Spain  and 
Portugal  brought  grave  charges  against  them.  But 
Benedict  XIV.  seems  to  have  dreaded  the  overweening 
and  doomed  Society.  Even  his  private  letters  are 
singularly  free  from  direct  allusions  to  them,  and  more 
than  one  Jesuit  scholar  was  employed  by  him  on  tasks  of 
importance.  His  friend  Cardinal  Passionei,  a  worldly 
cardinal,  of  easy  ways,  who  spent  his  days  in  luxurious 
ease  at  Frascati,  often  urged  him  to  reform  the  Society, 
but  it  was  not  until  the  last  year  of  his  life  that  he  took 
any  step  in  that  direction.  Portugal  was  now  approach- 
ing its  great  struggle  with  the  Jesuits,  and  Benedict, 
on  April  I,  1758,  directed  Cardinal  Saldanha  to 
inspect  and  report  upon  the  condition  of  the  Jesuit 

'July  I,  1742.  » September  12,  1744. 


366   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

houses  and  colleges  in  that  country.  He  died  a  month 
later,  unconscious  of  the  great  revolution  which  the 
Catholic  Powers  were  preparing  to  force  on  the  Papacy. 

Of  the  isolated  ecclesiastical  acts  of  Benedict  it  is 
impossible  to  give  here  even  a  summary.  No  Pope 
since  the  great  Pontiffs  of  the  early  Middle  Ages  had 
enriched  his  Church  with  so  much  (from  the  Papal 
point  of  view)  sound  legislation:  none  had  had  so 
scientific  a  command  of  ecclesiastical  affairs  or  united 
with  it  so  indefatigable  an  industry.  His  Bull  Magnce 
Nobis  Admirationis^  prescribes,  in  the  case  of  mixed 
marriages,  the  rules  which  are  enforced  in  the  Church 
today.  He  forbade  monks  to  practise  surgery  or  dis- 
pense drugs;  though  Europe  would  have  been  more 
completely  indebted  to  him  in  this  respect  if  he  had  not 
made  an  exception  in  favour  of  the  atrocious  drug  known 
as  "theriac"  and  the  foolish  compound  which  went  by 
the  name  of  "apoplectic  balsam."  He  condemned 
Freemasonry,^  though  his  decree  was  not  enforced. 
But  one  must  glance  over  the  thirteen  volumes  of  his 
Bullarium  and  the  seventeen  volumes  of  his  religious 
and  liturgical  works  if  one  would  realize  his  massive 
industry  and  devotion  to  his  duties. 

In  the  spring  of  1758  his  robust  constitution  yielded 
to  the  ravages  of  gout,  labour,  and  anxiety,  and  he  died 
on  May  3d.  He  was  not,  as  some  say,  "the  idol  of 
Rome."  The  cardinals  felt  the  disdain  of  them  which 
he  often  expresses  in  his  letters,  and  many  of  the  clergy 
regarded  him  as  too  severe  on  them  and  too  pliant  to  the 
laity.  Neither  was  he  a  genius.  Clearness  of  mind, 
immense  industry,  and  sober  ways  are  the  sources  of 
his  output.  His  works  are  not  read  today  even  by 
ecclesiastics,  and  it  is  ludicrous  to  represent  them  as  his 

'  June  29,  1748.  '  March  18,  1751. 


Benedict  XIV:  the  Scholar-Pope      367 

title  to  immortality.  Yet  Benedict  XIV.  was  a  great 
Pope:  a  wise  ruler  of  the  Church  at  a  time  when  once 
more,  unconsciously,  it  approached  a  world-crisis. 
The  magnitude  of  the  change  which  was  taking  place 
in  Europe  he  never  perceived,  but  his  policy  was  wise 
in  the  measure  of  his  perception,  and  his  geniality  of 
temperament,  imited  to  so  wholehearted  a  devotion  to 
his  duty,  won  some  respect  for  the  name  of  Pope  in 
lands  where  it  had  been  for  two  hundred  years  a  thing 
of  contempt. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

PIUS   VII.    AND    THE   REVOLUTION 

BENEDICT  XIV.  had  maintained  Papal  power  and 
prestige  in  his  Catholic  world  by  prudent  con- 
cessions to  a  European  spirit  which  he  recognized  as 
having  definitely  emerged  from  its  mediaeval  phase. 
His  successors  for  many  decades  lacked  his  penetration ; 
though  one  may  wonder  if,  without  sacrificing  essential 
principles  of  the  Papal  scheme,  they  could  have  ad- 
vanced farther  along  the  path  of  concession  to  a  more 
and  more  exacting  age.  However  that  may  be,  they 
generally  clung  to  the  autocratic  principles  of  the 
Papacy,  and  as  a  consequence  they  ceased  to  be  the 
leaders  of  their  age  and  became  little  more  than  corks 
tossed  on  heaving  waters.  Not  until  Leo  XIII.  do  we 
find  a  Pope  with  a  human  quality  of  statesmanship.  In 
the  intervening  Pontificates  the  barque  of  Peter  drifted 
on  the  wild  and  swollen  waters,  pathetically  bearing 
still  a  flag  which  bore  the  legend  of  ruler  of  the  waves. 
Clement  XIII.  (i 758-1 769)  and  Clement  XIV. 
( 1 769-1 774)  were  occupied  with  the  problem  of  the 
Jesuits.  One  by  one  the  Catholic  Powers — Portugal, 
France,  Naples,  and  Spain — swept  the  Jesuits  from  their 
territory,  with  a  flood  of  obloquy,  and  then  made  a 
collective  demand  on  the  Pope  for  the  suppression  of 
the  Society.     Clement  XIII.  had  made  a  futile  effort 

368 


Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution         369 

to  assert  the  old  dictatorial  power;  and  Catholic  nations 
had  retorted  by  seizing  part  of  the  diminished  Papal 
States.  France  had  occupied  Avignon  and  Vennais- 
sin,  and  Naples  had  taken  Benevento  and  Pontecorvo. 
The  bewildered  Pope  found  peace  in  the  grave,  and  the 
Powers  ensured  the  election  of  a  man  who  did  not 
regard  the  suppression  of  the  Society  as  an  impossibility. 
For  four  years  Ganganelli,  Clement  XIV.,  resisted  or 
restrained  the  pressure  of  the  Catholic  Powers,  but  in 
1773  the  famous  Bull  Dominus  ac  Redemptor  Noster 
disbanded  the  most  effective  force  of  the  Counter- 
Reformation,  plainly  endorsing  the  charge  against  it 
of  corruption.  ^ 

Pius  VI.  ( 1 775-1 798)  came  vaguely  to  realize  that 
there  was  some  deep  malady  in  the  world  which,  in 
bewildering  impotence,  he  contemplated.  The  hostil- 
ity to  the  Jesuits  had  been  a  symptom;  nor  was  the 
symptom  more  intelligible  to  so  unskilful  a  physician 
when  the  Protestant  rulers  of  Russia  and  Prussia  pro- 
tected the  Jesuits,  while  the  Catholic  Powers  sternly 
restrained  his  wish  to  restore  the  Society.  Vaguely, 
also,  he  realized  that  there  was  a  deeper  infidelity  in  the 
world;  that  the  "philosophers"  of  France  and  Spain 
and  Italy  and  the  "illumined  ones"  of  Germany  were  a 
new  thing  under  the  sun ;  and  that  the  traditions  of  the 
Papacy  did  not  help  in  dealing  with  such  "Catholic" 
statesmen  as  Pombal,  Aranda,  Tanucci,  and  Choiseul. 
He  had  not  even  the  traditional  remedy  of  finding 
support  in  the  "Roman  Empire."  Under  Joseph 
II.  and  Kaimitz,  Austria  had  developed  a  rebellious 

'  It  is  not  true  that  Clement  abstained  from  passing  judgment  on  the 
Society;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  need  we  regard  seriously  the  statement 
that  he  was  poisoned  by  the  ex-Jesuits.  See  the  author's  Candid  His- 
tory of  the  Jesuits,  pp.  355  and  368. 

34 


3/0   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

spirit  which  rivalled  the  most  defiant  phases  of 
Gallicanism. ' 

Pius  visited  Vienna,  and  trusted  that  his  handsome 
and  engaging  presence  would  reconcile  the  Emperor 
to  his  large  pretensions,  but  the  visit  was  fruitless  and 
the  vanity  of  the  Pope  was  bruised.  At  least  the  mass 
of  the  people  were  faithful,  Pius  thought.  Then  there 
came  the  terrible  disillusion  of  the  French  Revolution, 
and  resounding  echoes  of  its  fiery  language  in  Italy  and 
Spain.  Pius  made  his  last  blunder — though  the  most 
natural  course  for  him  to  take — by  allying  himself  with 
Austria  and  England  against  the  Revolution,  and  the 
shadow  of  Napoleon  fell  over  Italy.  Napoleon  shat- 
tered the  Austrian  forces  and  compelled  the  Pope  to 
sacrifice  Avignon  and  Venaissin,  to  lose  the  three 
Legations  (Bologna,  Ferrara,  and  Romagna),  and  to 
pay  out  of  his  scanty  income  30,000,000  lire.  In  the 
following  year,  1798,  the  French  inspired  a  rebellion  at 
Rome.  The  Romans  set  up  once  more  feeble  images  of 
their  ancient  "Consuls"  and  "^diles, "  and  the  aged 
Pope  was  dragged  from  point  to  point  by  the  French 
dragoons  until  he  expired  at  Valence  on  August  29, 
1798.  General  Bonaparte  had  said,  contemptuously, 
that  the  Papacy  was  breaking  up.  There  were  those 
who  asked  if  Pius  VI.  was  the  last  Pope. 

But  a  new  act  of  the  strange  European  drama  was 
opening.  Bonaparte  was  in  Egypt,  brooding  over 
iridescent  dreams  of  empire,  and  the  treaty  of  Campo 
Formio  which  he  had  concluded  before  leaving  had 

'  In  Austria  the  movement  was  called  Febronianism,  as  it  had  begun 
with  a  work  {De  Statu  Ecclesice)  published  in  1763  by  Johann  von  Hon- 
theim  under  the  pseudonym  of  "Febronius. "  Hontheim  had  learned 
Galilean  sentiments  at  Louvain.  Joseph  II.  had  wisely  and  firmly 
adopted  the  chief  principles  of  the  school:  religious  toleration,  restriction 
of  the  interference  of  the  Popes,  and  control  of  ecclesiastical  property. 


Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution         371 

given  Venice  (as  well  as  Istria  and  Dalmatia)  to  Austria. 
To  Venice,  accordingly,  forty-six  of  the  scattered  and 
impoverished  cardinals  made  their  way,  for  the  purpose 
of  electing  a  new  Pope,  and  the  Conclave  was  lodged 
in  the  abbey  of  San  Giorgio  on  November  30th.  The 
history  of  the  Papal  Conclaves  has  inspired  a  romantic 
and  caustic  narrative, '  and  the  account  of  the  Conclave 
of  1 798-1 799  is  not  one  of  the  least  interesting.  Austria, 
which  had  occupied  the  northern  Papal  provinces,  and 
Naples,  which  had  succeeded  the  French  in  the  south 
and  was  now  "guarding"  Rome,  did  not  desire  the 
election  of  a  Pope  who  would  claim  his  full  temporal 
dominion.  Against  them  was  the  solid  nucleus  of 
conservative  and  rigid  cardinals,  and  on  the  fringe  of  the 
struggle  were  the  imattached  cardinals,  some  of  whom 
had  a  lively  concern  about  this  General  Bonaparte 
who  had  just  returned  from  Egypt.  The  statesman 
of  the  College  was  Cardinal  Consalvi,  a  very  able  and 
accomplished  son  of  a  noble  Pisan  family.  Consalvi, 
as  a  good  noble  and  churchman,  loathed  the  Revolution, 
but,  when  the  struggle  of  voters  had  lasted  three  or 
four  months  and  the  two  chief  parties  had  reached  a 
deadlock,  he  Hstened  to  the  suggestion  of  Cardinal 
Maury  that  the  mild  "Jacobin"  Cardinal  Chiaramonti 
would  be  the  best  man  to  elect.  Bonaparte  had  spoken 
well  of  Chiaramonti,  and  Austria  would  not  resent  the 
election  of  a  lowly-minded  Benedictine  monk.  Whether 
or  no  Consalvi  suspected  that  Maury  was  (at  least  in 
part)  working  for  a  personal  reward,  he  took  up  the 
intrigue,  and  on  March  24th  Chiaramonti  became  Pius 
VII.  They  had  put  an  aged  and  timid  monk  at  the 
helm  on  such  a  sea. 

»  Petrucelli  della   Gattina's  Hisloire   diplomatique  des   Conclaves,  4 
vols.,  1864-6. 


Zl^   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Barnaba  Luigi  Chiaramonti  was  born  at  Cesena, 
of  a  small-noble  family,  on  August  14,  1742.  He 
entered  the  Benedictine  Order  at  the  age  of  sixteen  and 
distinguished  himself  in  his  studies.  As  he  was  dis- 
tantly related  to  Pius  VI.,  who  was  a  flagrant  nepotist, 
he  easily  earned  promotion  at  Rome.  He  taught 
theology  and  was  titular  abbot  of  San  Callisto.  In 
time  he  became  Bishop  of  Tivoli,  then  Bishop  of  Imola 
and  Cardinal.  He  was  administering  his  diocese  with 
due  zeal,  and  more  than  ordinary  gentleness,  when  the 
storm  of  the  French  invasion  broke  upon  Italy.  He 
was  not  a  pohtician.  He  advised  his  people  to  submit 
to  the  Cisalpine  Republic  set  up  by  the  French,  and 
mediated  for  them  with  General  Augereau  when  some 
of  them  rebelled.  But,  when  the  Austrians  came  in 
turn,  he  advised  the  people  to  submit  to  their  "liber- 
ators," and,  when  the  French  returned,  the  magistrates 
of  Imola  charged  him  with  treachery  and  he  had  to 
plead  on  his  own  behalf.  However,  his  colleagues 
affected  to  regard  him  as  a  Jacobin,  and  his  easy  atti- 
tude toward  the  French  and  the  temporal  power  won 
him  the  tiara.  He  was  crowned  in  San  Giorgio  on 
March  21st. 

Austria  had  refused  the  use  of  San  Marco  for  the 
ceremony,  because  it  was  nervously  anxious  to  dis- 
courage ideas  of  royalty  in  the  new  Pope,  and  its  repre- 
sentative in  the  Sacred  College,  Cardinal  Hrzan, 
urged  Pius  to  go  from  Venice  to  Vienna,  and  to  make 
Cardinal  Flangini  (a  Venetian)  his  Secretary  of  State. 
Pius  quietly  refused,  and  chose  Consalvi.  In  quick 
succession  the  Austrian  ambassador  offered  him  the 
territory  they  had  taken  from  Lombardy,  without 
the  Legations,  and  then  two  out  of  the  three  Legations 
(they  keeping  Romagna),  but  Consalvi  prompted  him 


Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution         373 

to  refuse,  and  he  set  out  for  Rome.  The  Austrians 
would  not  suffer  him  to  pass  through  the  Papal  ter- 
ritory they  held,  and  he  had  to  proceed  by  boat  to 
Pesaro.  But  the  news  that  the  Neapolitans  had  re- 
tired from  Rome,  and  that  the  Austrians  (chastened 
by  Napoleon)  now  offered  him  the  three  Legations  they 
were  unable  to  keep,  cheered  the  Pontiff  on  his  journey 
and  he  entered  Rome  in  triumph. ' 

Consalvi,  whose  firm  hand  guides  that  of  the  Pope 
during  most  of  his  Pontificate,  began  at  once  to  put  in 
order  the  chaotic  affairs  of  the  Papacy.  The  treasury 
was  empty,  though  the  four  resplendent  tiaras  had  been 
stripped  of  their  jewels,  the  taxes  were  insupportable, 
and  the  coinage  was  shamefully  debased.  Consalvi 
removed  some  of  the  taxes — though  he  was  forced  to 
restore  them  at  a  later  date — and,  at  a  cost  of  1,500,000 
scudi,  called  in  the  adulterated  coin.  He  turned  with 
vigour  to  the  affairs  of  Germany,  where  the  princes  who 
were  dispossessed  of  their  territory  on  the  left  bank  of 

'  The  chief  source  of  our  knowledge  of  the  earlier  years  of  Pius  is  the 
sketch  of  his  life  by  Artaud  de  Montor.  Cardinal  Wiseman  (another 
eulogist)  covers  the  ground  in  the  early  chapters  of  his  Recollections  oj 
the  Last  Four  Popes  (1858).  Dr.  E.  L.  T.  Henke's  Papst  Pius  VII. 
(i860)  is  an  excellent  impartial  study,  while  D.  Bertolotti's  Vita  di 
Papa  Pio  VII.  (1881)  is  less  scholarly,  and  Mary  Allies'  Pius  the  Seventh 
is  rather  a  tract  than  an  historical  study.  The  Pope's  relations  with 
Napoleon  (after  the  coronation)  are  minutely,  though  far  from  impar- 
tially, studied  in  H,  Welschinger's  Le  Pape  et  I'Empereur  (1905)  and 
Father  Ilario  Rinieri's  Napoleone  e  Pio  VII.  (2  vols.,  1906):  both  make 
some  use  of  unpublished  documents.  See  also  F.  Rinieri's  //  Concordato 
tra  Pio  VII.  e  il  Primo  Console  (1902).  The  Pope's  Bulls  are  in  the  Bul- 
larii  Romani  Continuatio  (ed.  Barberi,  vols,  xi.-xv).  Contemporary 
documents  abound,  and  one  need  mention  only  the  Memoirs  of  Consalvi, 
Pacca,  and  Talleyrand,  and  the  Correspondance  de  Napoleon  I.  Special 
studies  will  be  quoted  later.  Dr.  F.  Nielsen's  History  oj  the  Papacy  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century  (2  vols.,  1906)  is  the  best  recent  study  of  the  period 
of  Pius  VII.  to  Pius  IX.:  it  is  scholarly  and  impartial. 


374   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

the  Rhine  by  the  Treaty  of  Luneville'  proposed  to 
recoup  themselves  from  the  ecclesiastical  estates  on  the 
right  bank.^  But  every  other  interest  was  soon  over- 
shadowed by  the  relations  of  Napoleon  to  Rome,  and 
the  story  of  Pius  VII.  is  almost  entirely  the  story  of 
those  singular  and  tragic  relations. 

Napoleon  had  re-entered  Italy,  and  won  Marengo, 
before  Pius  reached  Rome.  But  experience  in  the  East 
and  consideration  of  his  growing  ambition  had  made 
Voltaireanism  seem  to  him  impolitic,  and  he  now  sent  a 
representative  to  treat  with  the  new  Pope  as  respect- 
fully as  if  he  commanded  200,000  men.  They  would 
co-operate  in  restoring  religion  in  France.  Pius 
timidly  expressed  some  concern  at  the  Mohammedan 
sentiments  Bonaparte  had  so  recently  uttered  in 
Egypt,  but  he  and  the  cardinals  assented  to  the  pro- 
posal, and  Archbishop  Spina  was  sent  to  Paris  in 
November  (1800).  In  view  of  Napoleon's  demands — 
that  the  old  hierarchy  of  158  bishops  should  be  reduced 
to  sixty,  that  a  certain  proportion  of  the  Republican 
(constitutional)  bishops  should  be  elected  together 
with  a  proportion  of  the  emigrant  royalists,  that  no 
alienated  church-property  should  be  restored,  and 
that  Christianity  should  not  be  established  as  "the 
religion  of  France" — Spina  found  that  his  powers  were 
inadequate,  and  Napoleon  sent  Cacault  to  Rome  with 
the  draft  of  a  Concordat  (March,  1501).  Pius  and  his 
cardinals  shrank  from  so  formidable  a  sacrifice,  and 
would  negotiate,  in  time-honoured  Roman  fashion. 
But  ancient  customs  did  not  impress  Bonaparte.  Ca- 
cault reported  in  May  that  the  Concordat  was  to  be 

'  February  9,  1801. 

'  This  Pius  entirely  failed  to  prevent.  See  Father  Leo  Koenitj's 
Pius  VII.:  Die  Sdkularisation  und  das  Reichskonkordat  (1904). 


Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution         375 

signed  in  five  days,  whether  it  killed  the  bewildered  Pope 
or  no  (as  Consalvi  said  it  would),  or  France  would  set 
up  its  Church  without  his  aid.  As  a  compromise, 
Cacault  suggested  that  Consalvi  should  accompany 
him  to  Paris,  and  the  Quirinal  had  faith  in  its  great 
diplomatist.  Even  Consalvi,  however,  was  nervous 
and  almost  powerless  before  the  studied  violence  of 
Napoleon,  and  his  diplomatic  movements  were  con- 
stantly met  with  a  brusque  declaration  that  Napoleon 
would  detach  France,  if  not  Catholic  Europe,  from  the 
Papacy  if  the  Concordat  were  not  quickly  signed.^ 
The  attitude  of  Napoleon  was  not  merely  despotic. 
Although  France  was  still  overwhelmingly  Catholic, 
as  writers  on  the  revolutionary  excesses  often  forget, 
an  important  minority,  including  most  of  Napoleon's 
higher  officers,  were  bitterly  anti-clerical  and  opposed 
any  attempt  to  restore  the  Church.  Napoleon,  who 
felt  that  the  religious  sentiment  of  the  majority  must 
be  dissociated  from  the  emigrants  and  bound  up  once 
more  with  a  national  Church,  would  have  preferred  to 
dispense  with  Rome  and  proceed  on  extreme  Galilean 
principles.  But  Catholic  sentiment  would  not  ac- 
quiesce in  so  violent  a  procedure,  and  Napoleon  realized 
the  vast  gain  it  would  be  to  him  to  win  the  cosmopolitan 
influence  of  the  Pope.  This  feeble  and  timid  monk,  he 
thought,  needed  intimidation,  and  of  that  art  Napoleon 
was  a  master.  After  a  final  twenty-four  hours'  sitting 
on  July  1 3th- 1 4th,  the  draft  was  passed  by  Consalvi. 
After  a  further  struggle,  and  some  further  modification, 
it  satisfied  both  parties,  and  Consalvi  sent  it,  with 
some  satisfaction,  to  Rome  for  the  Pope's  signature. 

•  Consalvi's  Memoirs  are  naturally  prejudiced,  and  not  reliable. 
Theincr's  Histoire  des  deux  Concordats  (1869)  and  S^ch^'s  Les  Origines 
du  Concordat  (1894)  are  carefully  documented. 


Zl^  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

The  new  bishops  were  to  be  nominated  by  Napoleon  and 
instituted  by  the  Pope,  and  the  Catholic  faith  was  to 
be  declared  "the  religion  of  the  majority."  Free- 
thinkers resented  the  whole  negotiation:  Galileans 
deplored  that  the  power  of  the  clergy  had  been  divided 
between  the  Pope  and  the  Consul:  Royalists  abroad 
protested  bitterly  against  the  required  resignation  of 
the  old  bishops.  Pius  felt  that  this  miraculous  re- 
storation of  the  Church  was  worth  the  price.  He  signed 
the  Concordat  and  blessed  the  restorer  of  the  faith. 

But  the  Pope  and  Consalvi  obtained  a  further  in- 
sight into  Napoleon's  character  when  the  Concordat  was 
made  public  on  Easter  Sunday  (1802).  With  it  were 
associated,  as  if  they  were  part  of  the  agreement,  certain 
"Organic  Articles"  of  the  most  Galilean  description. 
No  Bull  or  other  document  from  Rome  could  be  pub- 
lished in  France,  no  Nuncio  or  Legate  exercise  his 
functions,  and  no  Council  be  held,  without  the  authori- 
zation of  the  secular  authorities.  All  seminary-teachers 
were  to  subscribe  to  the  famous  principles  of  1682,  and 
in  case  the  higher  clergy  violated  those  or  the  laws  of 
the  Republic  the  Council  of  State  might  sit  in  judgment 
on  them.  Pius  made  a  futile  protest,  when  he  read  the 
seventy-six  lamentable  articles,  but  Napoleon  soon  had 
the  Pope  smiling  over  a  gift  of  two  frigates  to  the  Papal 
navy;  and  Pius  laicised  Talleyrand  and  raised  five 
French  bishops,  including  Napoleon's  half-uncle  Fesch, 
to  the  cardinalate.  A  similar  Concordat  was  forced 
by  Napoleon  on  the  Cisalpine  Republic  in  1803,  and 
Naples  was  compelled  to  return  Benevento  and  Pon- 
tecorvo.     The  first  phase  ended  in  smiles. 

Cardinal  Caprara  was  sent  as  legate  to  Paris,  and 
his  experiences  moderated  the  Pope's  satisfaction.  He 
was  quite  unable  to  resist  the  election  of  the  constitu- 


Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution         377 

tional  bishops  (the  clergy  who  had  adhered  to  the  Repub- 
lican Constitution,  which  Rome  severely  and  naturally 
condemned)  and  he  could  not  wring  from  them  a  formal 
acknowledgment  of  their  errors.  But  these  matters 
were  soon  thrust  out  of  mind  by  fresh  events  in  France. 
On  May  18,  1804,  Napoleon  was  elected  Emperor, 
and  he  invited  Pius  to  come  to  Paris  to  crown  him. 
There  was  a  natural  hesitation  at  Rome  to  flout  the 
Bourbons  and  their  allies  by  such  a  recognition  of 
Napoleon,  but  the  long  delay  was  not  in  substance  due 
to  that  political  scruple;  nor  was  it  in  any  serious  degree 
due,  as  some  writers  say,  to  the  recent  execution  of  the 
Due  d'Enghien,  which  appears  little  in  Papal  documents. 
Consalvi  persuaded  the  Pope  to  bargain  with  Napoleon : 
to  stipulate  for  the  abolition  of  the,  Organic  Articles, 
the  punishment  of  the  constitutional  clergy,  and  the 
return  of  the  three  Legations.  As  before,  the  diplomacy 
of  Consalvi  was  boisterously  swept  aside  by  Napoleon, 
and  on  November  2d  the  aged  Pope  set  out  for  Paris. 
Not  a  single  definite  promise  had  been  made,  and  it 
seems,  from  later  language  of  the  Pope,  that  either  he 
or  Consalvi  regarded  the  journey  with  grave  distrust. 
Pius  left  behind  him  a  document  authorizing  the  car- 
dinals to  choose  a  successor,  in  case  Napoleon  violently 
detained  him  in  France.  We  may  ascribe  this  foresight 
to  Consalvi,  as  throughout  these  earlier  years  Pius 
appears  to  be  merely  the  agent  of  the  wishes  of  the 
cardinals. 

Napoleon  must  have  noted  with  satisfaction  the  ease 
with  which  his  constant  trickery  escaped  the  Pope's 
eye.  On  November  25th  he,  in  hunting  dress,  with 
studied  casualness,  met  the  Pope  on  the  open  road  at 
Fontainebleau,  arranged  that  he  should  himself  sit  on 
the  right  in  their  joint  carriage,  and  drove  him  into 


37^   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Paris  by  night.  Every  detail  had  been  carefully 
planned  with  a  view  to  the  avoidance  of  paying  un- 
necessary honour  to  the  Pope.  Pius  noticed  nothing, 
and  wrote  enthusiastically  to  Italy  of  Napoleon's 
goodness  and  zeal  for  religion;  and  indeed  the  enthus- 
iasm of  the  faithful  Catholics  of  Paris,  when  they  found 
a  venerable  Pope  blessing  them  from  the  balconies  of 
the  Tuileries,  might  w^ell  seem  to  him  to  indicate  a 
triumph  after  the  dark  decade  that  had  passed.  Dis- 
illusion came  slowly.  Josephine,  who  now  knew  that 
she  was  threatened  with  divorce,  confided  to  the  Pope 
that  there  had  been  no  church-celebration  of  her 
marriage  with  Napoleon,  and  Pius  refused  to  crown 
them  until  it  took  place.  Napoleon  thundered,  but  the 
Pope  had  a  clear  principle  and  the  difficulty  was  met 
by  trickery.  Cardinal  Fesch  was  permitted  by  the 
Pope  to  marry  them  without  witnesses,  and  Napoleon 
pointed  out  to  friends  that  he  was  taking  part  in  the 
ceremony  without  internal  consent.  On  the  following 
day,  December  2d,  the  coronation  took  place  at  Notre 
Dame,  and  Napoleon  at  one  stroke  annihilated  the 
prestige  of  the  Pope  by  crowning  himself  and  Josephine 
with  his  own  hands. 

Another  wave  of  disdain  of  the  Pope  passed  through 
foreign  lands:  "A  puppet  of  no  importance, "  said  even 
Joseph  de  Maistre.  Pius  remained  gentle  and  patient. 
He  had  still  to  win  the  reward  of  his  sacrifices :  to  induce 
the  Emperor  to  restore  the  Papal  States,  to  modify  the 
Organic  Articles,  to  abolish  the  law  of  divorce,  enforce 
the  observance  of  Sunday,  and  reintroduce  the  mon- 
astic orders.  The  cardinals  had  drawn  up  a  pretty 
program.  Napoleon  suavely  refused  every  proposition, 
and  sent  one  of  his  officers  to  suggest  that  Pius  would 
do  well  to  settle  at  Avignon,  and  have  a  palace  at  Paris. 


Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution         379 

Pius,  now  thoroughly  alarmed,  refused  emphatically 
to  stay  in  France,  and  disclosed  that  he  had  arranged 
to  give  him  a  successor  if  he  were  detained.  And 
Pius  returned  to  give  the  cardinals  a  roseate  account  of 
the  resurrection  of  religion  in  France  and  the  goodness  of 
the  Emperor.  When  he  refused,  shortly  afterwards, 
to  crown  Napoleon  King  of  Italy  at  Milan,  there  were 
those  who  admired  his  firmness.  It  is  more  likely  that 
he  acted  on  the  advice  of  the  disappointed  cardinals. 

Up  to  this  point  Pius  VII.  had  given  no  indication  of 
personality.  One  must,  of  course,  appreciate  that  the 
restoration  of  the  Church  in  France  would  seem  to  him 
an  achievement  worth  large  sacrifices,  yet  his  childlike 
joy  in  Napoleon's  insincere  caresses,  his  utter  failure 
to  detect  the  true  aims  and  the  trickery  of  the  Emperor, 
and  the  entire  lack  of  plan  or  efficacy  in  his  protests, 
must  have  convinced  Napoleon,  as  they  convinced 
hostile  Royalists,  that  he  was  a  mere  puppet.  He 
cannot  possibly  have  had  the  measure  of  ability  with 
which  Cardinal  Wiseman  would  endow  him.  The  same 
conclusion  is  forced  on  us  by  a  consideration  of  the 
second  part  of  his  relations  with  Napoleon.  Isolated 
from  his  abler  cardinals,  he,  like  a  child,  bemoans  his 
inability  to  form  his  judgment,  and  stumbles  from  error 
to  error.  But  ten  years  of  defeat  have  taught  him  that 
he  is  dealing  with  an  enemy  of  religion,  and  he  reveals 
a  certain  greatness  of  character  in  his  resistance. 

In  the  spring  of  1805  the  Emperor  asked  the  Pope 
to  dissolve,  or  declare  null,  the  marriage  which  his 
brother  Jerome  had  contracted  in  America  with  a  Miss 
Paterson,  a  Protestant.  Pius  was  eager  to  do  so,  if 
ecclesiastical  principles  yielded  the  slightest  ground  for 
such  an  act,  but,  after  a  long  examination,  he  was 
obliged  to  refuse.     Napoleon  began  to  speak  of  him  as 


380  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

a  fool.  The  summer  brought  war  with  Austria  once 
more,  and  in  October  the  French  troops  marched 
through  the  Papal  States  on  their  way  to  Naples,  and 
occupied  Ancona.  When  Pius  protested  (November 
13,  1805),  the  Emperor  scornfully  replied — after  an 
interval  of  two  months — that  if  its  Papal  owners  were 
not  able  or  willing  to  fortify  Ancona,  he  must  occupy 
it:  that  the  Pope  and  the  cardinals  prostituted  religion 
by  their  friendly  relations  with  English  and  Russian 
enemies  of  France :  and  that  he  would  respect  the  Pope's 
spiritual  sovereignty,  and  expected  from  him  respect  for 
the  Emperor's  political  sovereignty.'  On  February  13, 
(1806)  Napoleon  wrote  more  explicitly.  The  Pope 
must  close  his  harbours  against  the  English,  expel  from 
Rome  all  representatives  of  the  enemies  of  France,  get 
rid  of  his  bad  counsellors  (Consalvi),  and  remember  that 
Napoleon  is  Emperor  of  Rome.^  Pius,  after  consulting 
the  cardinals,  replied  that  the  "Roman  Emperor" 
was  at  Vienna,  and  that  the  Papacy  would  not  be  drawn 
into  a  war  between  France  and  England.  To  the 
French  representative  in  Rome  the  Pope  used  a  very 
firm  language;  he  would  die  rather  than  yield  on  what 
he  conceived  as  a  matter  of  principle.  When,  some 
time  afterwards.  Napoleon  annexed  Naples,  and  the 
Papacy  protested  that  it  was  a  Papal  fief,  Napoleon 
rightly  gave  Consalvi  the  credit  for  the  opposition  and 
forced  him  to  resign.  He  had  in  1802  restored  Bene- 
vento  and  Pontecorvo  to  Rome :  he  now  gave  the  former 
to  Talleyrand  and  the  latter  to  Bemadotte. 

It  must  seem  an  idle  practice  to  seek  apologies  for 
Napoleon's  conduct,  but  we  do  well  to  conceive  that 
each  man  was  justified  in  his  procedure.  Napoleon 
was  wrong  only  in  his  pretexts  and  his  methods.     He 

'  Correspondance  de  Napoleon  I.,  xi.,  642.  '  Ibid.,  xii.,  477. 


Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution         381 

was  no  orthodox  Catholic,  and  had  no  illusions  about 
the  sacred  origin  of  the  temporal  power.  If  the  Pope 
chose  to  be  a  king,  he  submitted  to  the  laws  of  kings. 
The  Papacy  undoubtedly  thwarted  the  work  of  the 
Emperor  in  Italy  and  aided  his  enemies.  Cardinal 
Pacca  says  in  his  Memoirs  that  Pius  wrote  him  that  he 
"risked  everything  for  the  English."^  Common  op- 
position to  Napoleon  brought  about  a  remarkable  ap- 
proach of  Rome  and  England,  and  the  Quirinal  had 
hopes  of  advantage  for  the  Church  in  England.  The 
Papal  ports  were  of  great  service  to  the  English  fleet, 
and  therefore  of  great  disservice  to  the  French. 

Pius  VII.  seems  never  to  have  realized  the  elementary 
fact  that  Napoleon  was  not  a  Christian.  He  relied  too 
long  on  the  orthodox  fiction  that,  because  the  Pope  was 
the  successor  of  Peter  in  spiritual  matters,  any  temporal 
power  taken  from  him  was  taken  from  "The  Blessed 
Peter."  Napoleon  did  not  share  that  illusion,  and  it 
is  singular  that  he  waited  so  long  before  consolidating 
his  Italian  kingdom  by  absorbing  the  Papal  States. 
The  year  1807,  when  Napoleon  was  busy  with  Prussia, 
passed  in  recriminations.  Pius  would,  he  said,  show 
them  that  the  substitution  of  Cardinal  Casoni  as  his 
Secretary  of  State  for  Consalvi  made  no  difference.  He 
seemed  to  be  finding  his  personality,  but  there  were 
fiery  cardinals  like  Pacca  still  with  him. 

In  January,  1808,  Napoleon  ordered  General  MiolHs 
to  occupy  Rome,  and  presently  he  expelled  from  Rome 
all  cardinals  who  were  not  subjects  of  the  Papal  States. 
Pius,  during  the  night,  had  a  protesting  poster  fixed 
on  the  walls.  On  April  2d  Napoleon  annexed  Urbino, 
Ancona,  Macerata,  and  Camerino:  on  the  foolish  pre- 
text (among  others)  that  Charlemagne  had  bestowed 

•  Memorie,  i.,  68. 


382   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

those  provinces  on  the  Papacy  for  the  good  of  Cath- 
oHcism,  not  for  the  profit  of  its  enemies.  Pius  sent  a 
long  and  dignified  protest  to  all  bishops  in  his  dominions 
and  broke  off  diplomatic  relations  with  France.  Ga- 
brielli  had  succeeded  Casoni  in  counselling  Pius,  and  the 
French  now  made  the  singular  mistake  of  arresting 
Gabrielli  and  substituting  Pacca — a  fiery  and  inflexible 
opponent  of  Napoleon.  In  August  Pacca  came  into 
violent  collision  with  the  French  and  they  went  to 
arrest  him.  He  summoned  the  Pope,  and  Pius  person- 
ally conducted  him  to  the  protection  of  the  Quirinal. 
In  the  solitude  of  the  Quirinal  the}^  prepared  for  the  last 
step  and  drafted  an  excommunication  of  Napoleon.^ 
At  length  on  June  10,  1809,  they  received  Napoleon's 
declaration  that  the  Papal  States  were  incorporated  in 
his  Empire,  and  the  Bull  of  excommunication  {Qtcum 
Memoranda)  was  issued.  It  did  not  name  Napoleon, 
and  it  was  at  once  suppressed  by  the  French,  but  Gen- 
eral Miollis  considered  that  a  conditional  order  for  the 
arrest  of  the  Pope,  which  Napoleon  had  sent,  now  came 
into  force.  At  three  in  the  morning  of  July  6th  the 
troops  broke  into  the  Quirinal.  When  General  Radet 
and  his  officers  reached  the  Audience  Chamber,  they 
found  the  Pope  sitting  gravely  at  a  table,  with  a  group 
of  cardinals  on  either  side.  For  several  minutes  the 
two  groups  gazed  on  each  other  in  tense  silence,  and  at 
length  Radet  announced  that  the  Pope  must  abdicate 
or  go  into  exile.  Taking  only  his  breviary  and  crucifix, 
the  Pope  entered  the  carriage  at  four  o'clock,  and  he  and 
Pacca  were  swiftly  driven  through  the  silent  streets, 
and  on  the  long  road  to  Savona.     They  found  that 

'  Pacca  relates  that  the  English  sent  a  friar  to  say  that  they  had  a 
frigate  ready  to  take  away  the  Pope  and  his  secretary.  Such  were  the 
relations  of  Rome  and  England. 


Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution         383 

they  had  between  them  only  the  sum  of  twenty-two 
cents,  and  they  laughed. 

Pius  reached  Savona  on  August  i6th  (1809),  and 
was  lodged  in  the  episcopal  palace.  He  refused  the 
50,000  francs  a  year  and  the  carriages  offered  by  Na- 
poleon. He  refused  to  walk  in  Savona,  and  spent  the 
day  in  a  little  room  overlooking  the  walls,  or  walking 
in  the  scanty  garden  of  the  house.  He  had  no  secretary 
and  his  aged  hands  trembled,  but  pious  Catholics 
conspired  to  defeat  his  guardians  (or  corrupt  his 
guardians)  and  his  letters  and  directions  went  out 
stealthily  over  Europe.  His  cardinals  were  removed  to 
Paris,  and  when  Napoleon  divorced  Josephine  and 
married  Marie  Louise  (April  i,  18 10),  only  thirteen 
out  of  the  twenty-seven  cardinals  refused  to  attend  the 
ceremony.  Pius  still  declined  to  enter  into  Napoleon's 
plans.  Metternich  sent  an  Austrian  representative  to 
argue  with  him,  but  the  Pope  would  not  yield  his  tem- 
poral power,  and  he  demanded  his  cardinals.  Car- 
dinals Spina  and  Caselli,  of  the  moderate  party,  were 
sent  to  persuade  him,  but  the  mission  was  fruitless. 
Napoleon,  who  was  sorely  harassed  by  the  Pope's  re- 
fusal to  institute  the  new  bishops,  tried  to  act  without 
him,  and  made  Maury  Archbishop  of  Paris.  Pius  sent 
a  secret  letter  to  the  Vicar  Capitular  of  Paris,  declaring 
that  the  appointment  was  null,  and  Napoleon  angrily 
ordered  a  search  of  his  rooms  and  the  removal  of  books, 
ink,  paper,  and  personal  attendants. 

At  last,  in  June,  181 1,  the  strategy  of  Napoleon  suc- 
ceeded. The  Archbishop  of  Tours  and  three  other 
bishops  presented  themselves  at  Savona  with  the 
terrible  news  that  Napoleon  had  summoned  a  General 
Council  at  Paris  and  expected  the  bishops  to  remedy 
the  desperate  condition  of  the  French  Church — there 


384  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

were  twenty-seven  bishops  awaiting  institution — inde- 
pendently of  the  Pope.  Pius  still  refused  to  submit,  but 
day  after  day  the  prelates  and  the  Count  de  Chabrol 
harrowed  him  with  descriptions  of  the  appalling  results 
of  his  obstinacy,  and  on  the  tenth  day  they  hastened 
to  Paris  with  the  news  that  Pius  had  consented  on  the 
main  point:  he  would  institute  the  bishops  within  six 
months,  or,  if  he  failed  to  do  so,  the  Archbishop  would 
have  power  to  institute  them. 

What  really  happened  at  Savona  is  the  only  serious 
controversy  in  the  life  of  Pius  VII.,  and  this  controversy 
is  based  entirely  on  the  reluctance  of  Catholic  writers 
to  admit  that  the  Pope  erred.  The  usual  theory,  based 
on  the  work  of  D'Haussonville, '  is  that  Pius  fell  into  so 
grave  a  condition,  mentally  and  physically,  that  he  can 
hardly  be  regarded  as  responsible.  Recent  and  author- 
itative Catholic  writers  have  given  a  different  defence. 
H.  Welschinger^  seems  to  suggest  that  Pius  was  drugged 
by  his  medical  attendant,  but  he  goes  on  to  make  this 
fantastic  suggestion  superfluous  by  claiming  that  Pius 
did  not  consent  at  all,  either  orally  or  in  writing.  Father 
Rinieri,  on  the  other  hand,  scorns  the  theory  of  tem- 
porary insanity,  holds  that  the  Pope  deliberately 
assented,  and  claims  that  the  consent  was  perfectly 
justified  because  it  was  conditional;  the  Pope  agreed 
if,  as  the  bishops  said,  his  concession  would  lead  to 
peace  and  his  restoration  to  liberty.  These  theories 
destroy  each  other,  and  are  severally  inadmissible. 
Welschinger,  to  exonerate  the  Pope  from  weakness, 
assumes  that  the  Archbishop  of  Tours  lied;  for  that 
prelate  wrote  at  once  to  Paris  that  they  had  "drawn 
up  a  note  in  His  Holiness's  room,  and  he  had  accepted 

'  L'Eglise  Romaine  et  le  Premier  Empire,  5  vols.,  1868-1870. 
»  Le  Pape  et  VEmpereur  (1905),  pp.  177-196. 


Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution         385 

it,"  and  on  his  duplicate  of  the  note  he  wrote:  "This 
note,  drawn  up  in  His  HoHness's  room,  and  in  a  sense 
under  his  directions,  was  approved  and  agreed  to.  "^ 
Indeed,  when  Welschinger  himself  quotes  the  Pope  say- 
ing, in  his  jfit  of  repentance,  "  Luckily  I  signed  nothing, " 
we  gather  that  Pius  orally  assented,  Rinieri,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  wrong  in  making  the  Pope's  assent  strictly 
conditional;  the  last  clause  of  the  note  merely  states 
that  the  Pope  is  assured  that  good  results  will  follow. 
And  both  writers  are  at  fault  when  they  lay  stress  on 
the  fact  that  the  note  was  a  mere  draft  of  an  agreement. 
Unless  the  four  bishops  lied,  Pius  VII,,  under  great 
importunity  and  predictions  of  disaster,  and  in  a  very 
poor  state  of  health,  consented  to  a  principle  which  was 
utterly  inconsistent  with  Papal  teaching. 

Later  events  put  this  beyond  question,  and  make  all 
these  speculations  ridiculous.  It  is  unquestioned  that 
when,  on  the  following  morning,  Pius  asked  for  the 
bishops  and  learned  that  they  had  gone,  he  fell  into  a 
fit  of  remorse  and  despair  which  brought  him  near  to 
the  brink  of  madness.  It  is  equally  unquestioned  that 
Napoleon's  council  drew  up  a  decree  in  the  sense  of  the 
famous  Savona  note  and  that  on  September  20th  Pius 
signed  it.  Napoleon  had  been  dissatisfied  with  the 
Pope's  oral  consent  and  his  retractation  (which  the 
Emperor  concealed) ,  and  had  tried  to  bully  the  council 
into  a  declaration  independently  of  the  Papacy.  When 
he  failed,  he  assured  them  of  the  Pope's  consent  and 
they  passed  the  decree.  Eight  bishops  and  five  car- 
dinals took  it  to  Savona,  and  the  Pope  subscribed  to  it. 
The  only  plausible  defence  of  Pius  is  that  he  granted  or 
delegated  the  power  to  the  archbishops,  instead  of 
merely  declaring  that   the  archbishops   possessed  it. 

'  See  Rinieri,  pp.  165  and  166. 
2S 


386  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

But  the  Pope's  acute  remorse  shows  that  he  had  not 
deHberately  meant  this. 

Napoleon,  however,  saw  that  his  scheme  had  failed 
in  this  respect,  and  he  kept  the  Pope  at  Savona  while  he 
set  out  on  the  Russian  campaign.  After  a  time  the 
Emperor,  alleging  that  British  ships  hovered  about 
Savona,  ordered  the  removal  of  the  Pope  to  Fontaine- 
bleau,  and  he  was  transferred  with  such  secrecy  and 
discomfort  that  he  almost  died  in  crossing  Mont  Cenis. 
At  Fontainebleau  he  maintained  his  quiet,  ascetic  life: 
even  afforded  the  spectacle  of  a  Pope  mending  his  own. 
shirts.  The  thirteen  "black"  cardinals — the  men  who 
opposed  Napoleon  and  were  stripped  of  their  red  robes 
and  sent  into  exile — could  not  approach  him,  and  he 
paid  little  attention  to  Napoleon's  courtiers.  In 
December  (1812)  Napoleon  was  back  from  his  terrible 
failure,  but  he  still  sought  to  bluff  the  aged  Pope.  In 
a  genial  New- Year  letter  he  proposed  that  Pius  should 
settle  at  Paris  and  have  two  million  francs  a  year: 
that  he  would  in  future  permit  the  Catholic  rulers  to 
nominate  two  thirds  of  the  cardinals:  and  that  the 
thirteen  black  cardinals  should  be  censured  by  the 
Pope  and  gracefully  pardoned  by  the  Emperor.  Pius 
hesitated;  and  on  the  evening  of  January  i8th,  when 
Napoleon  suddenly  burst  into  his  room  and  embraced 
him,  the  old  tears  of  childlike  joy  stood  in  his  eyes 
once  more.  Napoleon  remained  and  put  before  him  a 
new  Concordat,  sacrificing  the  demands  he  had  made 
in  his  letter,  but  demanding  the  abdication  of  the 
temporal  power  and  six  months'  limit  for  the  Papal 
institution  of  bishops.  Harrowing  pictures  of  the 
Pope's  condition  and  the  pressure  put  on  him  by 
Napoleonic  prelates  are  drawn  by  pious  pens.  But 
the  fact  is  not  disputed  that   on   January   25th    the 


Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution         387 

"  martyr- Pope "  signed  the  Concordat  and  sacrificed 
the  temporal  power. 

When  Pacca  and  Consalvi  and  the  black  cardinals, 
who  were  now  set  at  Hberty,  arrived  at  Fontainebleau, 
they  shuddered  at  his  surrender,  but  they  could  not 
upbraid  the  pale,  worn,  distracted  Pontiff.  He  acknow- 
ledged his  "sin, "  as  he  called  it,  and  asked  their  advice. 
By  one  vote — fourteen  against  thirteen — the  stalwarts 
decided  that  he  must  retract  and  defy  Napoleon,  and 
a  remarkable  week  followed.  They  drafted  a  new 
Concordat,  and  the  Pope  wrote  a  few  lines  each  day, 
which  were  taken  away  in  Pacca's  pocket  to  the  rooms 
of  Cardinal  Pignatelli,  who  lived  outside.  The  Emper- 
or's spies  were  defeated,  and  he  had  a  last  burst  of  rage 
when  the  new  Concordat  was  put  before  him.  But  the 
Allies  were  closing  round  the  doomed  adventurer. 
As  they  approached,  he  offered  Pius  half  the  Papal 
States,  and  made  other  futile  proposals.  In  January, 
18 14,  Pius  was  conveyed  to  Savona:  on  March  17th 
he  was  informed  that  he  was  free.     Napoleon  had  fallen. 

Consalvi  was  dispatched  to  join  in  the  counsels  of  the 
Allies,  and  Pacca,  who  took  his  place,  set  himself 
joyously  to  obliterate  every  trace  of  the  Revolution 
and  Napoleon.  Monasteries  were  reopened,  schools 
and  administrative  offices  restored  to  the  clergy,  the 
Inquisition  re-established,  the  Jews  thrust  back  into 
the  Ghetto:  even  these  new  French  practices  of  light- 
ing streets  at  night  and  vaccinating  people  were  abol- 
ished. Above  all  things  the  Society  of  Jesus  must  be 
restored.  Pius  had  in  1801  recognised  the  Society  in 
Russia^  and  in  1804  he  granted  it  canonical  existence  in 
the  two  Sicilies.  The  appalling  experience  of  the  last 
twenty-five   years   had   now   swept   the   last   trace   of 

'  By  the  Brief  Calholiccc  Fidei,  March  7,  1801. 


388   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

liberalism  out  of  the  minds  of  Catholic  monarchs,  and 
on  August  17,  1 8 14,  the  Bull  Sollicitudo  Omnium 
restored  the  Society  throughout  the  world;  though 
Portugal  rejected  it  and  France  dared  not  carry  it  out. 
A  few  months  later  Rome  trembled  anew,  when  it  heard 
that  Napoleon  had  left  Elba  and  Murat  marched  across 
the  Papal  States  to  support  him.  Pius  fled  from  Rome, 
rejecting  all  the  overtures  of  Napoleon  and  IMurat,  but 
the  Hundred  Days  were  soon  over  and  reaction  reigned 
supreme.  Pius  never  lost  his  quaint  appreciation  of 
Napoleon.  Mme.  Letitia,  the  brothers  Lucien  and 
Louis,  and  Fesch  lived  in  honour  at  Rome,  and,  when 
the  mother  complained  that  the  English  were  killing 
her  son  at  St.  Helena,  Pius  earnestly  begged  Consalvi 
to  intercede  for  him.  At  Napoleon's  death  in  1821 
he  directed  Fesch  to  conduct  a  memorial  service. 

Meantime  Consalvi  had  won  back  the  Papal  States 
(except  Avignon  and  Venaissin  and  a  strip  of  Ferrara) 
at  the  Vienna  Congress,  and  had  returned  to  moderate 
the  excesses  of  the  reactionary  Pacca.  Consalvi  had 
no  liberal  sentiments,  but  he  had  intelligence.  At  least 
half  of  the  educated  Italians  were  Freethinkers,  and 
the  secret  society  of  the  Carho7iari  spread  over  the 
country,  ferociously  combatted  by  the  orthodox  San- 
fedisti.  Italy  entered  on  what  the  wits  called  the  long 
struggle  of  the  "cats"  and  the  "dogs" :  a  rife  period  for 
brigands.  Consalvi,  in  spite  of  Pacca  and  the  Zela?iti, 
compromised.  He  retained  many  of  the  Napoleonic  re- 
forms, though,  when  the  Spanish  revolution  of  1820  had 
its  revolutionary  echoes  all  over  Italy,  he  drew  nearer  to 
the  Holy  Alliance  for  the  bloody  extirpation  of  liberal- 
ism. Rome  prospered  once  more,  and  artists  and  princes 
flocked  to  it,  but  Pius  VII.  must  have  felt  in  his  last  years 
that  the  soil  of  Europe  still  heaved  and  shuddered. 


Pius  VII.  and  the  Revolution         389 

The  relations  of  the  QuirinaP  with  other  countries 
were  restored  in  some  measure,  in  face  of  stern  opposi- 
tion. A  new  Concordat  with  France  was  signed  in 
18 1 7,  but  the  Legislative  Assembly  refused  to  pass  it 
and  it  did  not  come  into  force  before  the  death  of  Pius. 
Spain  set  up  a  regime  of  truculent  orthodoxy  under  the 
sanguinary  rule  of  Ferdinand,  and  the  Revolution  of 
1820  was  crushed  for  him  by  the  French.  Austria 
made  no  new  Concordat  and  retained  much  of  the 
Febronian  temper.  Prussia  signed  a  favourable  Con- 
cordat in  1 82 1 .  B avaria  came  to  an  agreement  in  1 8 1 7 , 
but  the  liberals  defeated  it;  and  Naples  and  Sardinia 
were  ruled  in  the  spirit  of  the  Holy  AUiance.  William 
I.  sought  a  Concordat  for  the  Netherlands,  though 
without  result:  England  endeavoured  to  bring  about 
an  agreement  in  regard  to  the  Irish  bishops,  which 
was  defeated  by  the  Irish:  and  the  dioceses  of  Boston, 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  Charleston,  Richmond,  and 
Cincinnati  were  set  up  in  America. 

I  do  not  enter  into  closer  detail,  as  we  recognize  in 
all  this  work  the  hand  of  Consalvi  rather  than  of  Pius. 
The  aged  Pope  continued  to  rejoice  over  every  symptom, 
or  apparent  symptom,  of  religious  recovery,  and  to  mis- 
calculate his  age.  Even  the  revolution  of  1820  failed 
to  shake  orthodox  security  and  led  only  to  a  more  trucu- 
lent persecution  of  the  new  spirit.  Pius  had  now  passed 
his  eightieth  year  and  could  not  be  expected  to  see 
what  neither  Metternich  nor  Consalvi  could  see.  In  the 
summer  of  1823  he  fell  into  his  last  illness.  As  he  sank, 
men  noticed  that  he  was  murmuring  "Savona,  Fon- 
tainebleau,"  but  he  died  praying  quietly  on  August  17th. 
It  was  a  strange  fate  that  put  Barnaba  Luigi  Chiara- 

•  Almost  the  only  mention  of  the  Vatican  at  this  period  is  that  in 
1807  Pius  had  it  prepared  for  the  reception  of  Napoleon! 


390  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

monti  on  a  throne  in  such  an  age.  Whatever  church- 
lore  he  may  have  had,  he  confronted  the  problems  of 
his  age  with  dim  and  feeble  intelligence,  and  he  was  at 
times,  when  there  was  no  Pacca  or  Consalvi  to  guide 
him,  induced  to  make  concessions  which  are  not  con- 
sistent with  the  fond  title  of  "martyr-Pope. "  He  was  a 
good  Bishop  of  Imola. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

FIUS   IX. 

IN  spite  of  the  grave  condition  of  the  Catholic  world, 
the  ill-concealed  spread  of  liberal  ideas  among  the 
educated,  and  the  spurts  of  rebellion  throughout  Europe, 
the  cardinals  met  the  new  danger  with  as  little  wisdom 
as  their  predecessors  had  confronted  the  Reformation. 
The  three  Conclaves  which  were  held  within  eight  years 
of  the  death  of  Pius  VII.  were  marred  by  the  old 
wrangles  of  parties  and  ambitions  of  individuals,  and 
they  issued  in  the  election  of  entirely  unsuitable  Popes. 
The  Papacy  allied  itself  with  the  monarchs  in  an  effort 
to  stifle  the  growing  modern  spirit,  and  imitated  their 
unscrupulous  methods.  Leo  XII.  and  Gregory  XVI.,  at 
least,  left  behind  them  records  at  which  modern  senti- 
ment shudders.  Yet  they  showed  as  little  appreciation 
as  Louis  XVIII.  or  Charles  X.  of  the  irresistible  develop- 
ment through  which  Europe  was  passing,  and  there  seem 
to  be  whole  centuries  of  evolution  between  their  acts  and 
announcements  and  those  of  Leo  XIII. 

Cardinal  della  Ganga,  who  became  Leo  XII.  at  the 
death  of  Pius,  was  a  deeply  religious  and  narrow-minded 
man  who  achieved  much  moral  and  social  reform  in  his 
dominions,  yet  his  death  in  1829  was,  says  Baron  Bunsen, 
hailed  at  Rome  "with  indecent  joy."  His  despotic 
Puritan  measures  angered  his  subjects,  and  his  gross 

391 


392   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

injustice  to  the  Jews  and  fierce  persecution  of  the  Car- 
bonari and  Liberals  fed  the  growing  ItaHan  hatred  of 
the  Papacy.  Pius  VIII  (1829-30)  was  a  milder  Zelante 
and  had  won — a  singular  distinction  for  a  Pope  in  such 
a  crisis — some  repute  in  canon  law  and  numismatics. 
He  was  nearly  seventy  years  old,  and  his  Secretary  of 
State,  the  disreputable  Albani,  was  over  eighty.  The 
revolutionary  movement  of  1830  completed  his  afflic- 
tions, and  a  Roman  wag  proposed  as  his  epitaph:  "He 
was  born:  he  wept:  he  died."'  Then  came  the  longer 
Pontificate  of  Gregory  XVI.,  the  chief  events  of  which 
will  pass  before  us  as  we  review  the  earlier  career  of 
Pius  IX.  Gregory  was  a  pious,  narrow-minded  Camal- 
dulese  monk.  Like  his  predecessor,  he  was  well  versed 
in  canon  law  and  as  ill  fitted  as  a  man  could  be  to  rule 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  He  left  the  repression  of  the 
rebels  to  his  Secretary  of  State  Lambruschini,  and  said 
his  beads,  and  ate  sweetmeats  at  merry  little  gatherings 
of  cardinals,  while  Young  Italy  marched  nobly  to  the 
scaffold  and  its  brilliant  writers  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
world  to  the  foul  condition  of  the  Papal  States. 

Gregory  died  on  June  i,  1846,  dimly  foreseeing  an 
age  of  revolution,  and  reform  was  now  the  great  issue 
before  the  Conclave.  The  late  Pope's  supporters  put 
forward  the  truculent  Lambruschini,  but  from  the  first 
Cardinal  Mastai-Ferretti  was  conspicuous  in  the  voting, 
and  on  the  second  day  of  the  Conclave  he  was  elected 
by  thirty-seven  out  of  fifty  votes.  It  was  useless  any 
longer  to  ignore  that  appalling  indictment  of  abuses, 

'  During  his  twenty-months' Pontificate,  in  1829,  Catholic  Emancipa- 
tion was  carried  in  England.  But  the  Quirinal's  share  was  confined  to 
rejoicing.  Consalvi,  however,  had  "worked  incessantly"  for  it,  and 
had  been  much  aided  by  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire.  See  his  words  in 
Artaud's  Ilistoire  du  Papc  Leon  XII.,  i.,  171. 


Pius  IX.  393 

corruption,  and  incompetence  which  the  Italian  writers 
were  circulating  throughout  Europe.  The  cardinals 
chose  a  reformer:  a  man  who  was  at  times  described 
even  as  a  Liberal. 

Giovanni  Maria  Gianbattista  Pietro  Pellegrino  Isi- 
dore Mastai-Ferretti — the  name  reflects  the  piety  of 
his  mother — was  then  fifty-four  years  old.  He  had 
been  born  at  Sinigaglia  on  May  13,  1792,  of  parents 
who  belonged  to  the  small  provincial  nobility.  He  was 
sent  to  school  at  Volterra,  and  he  is  variously  described 
by  fellow-pupils  who  took  opposite  sides  in  the  fierce 
conflict  of  his  later  years  as  a  pale,  pure  little  angel  of 
marvellous  industry,  and  as  a  sickly,  epileptic  little 
idler  with  the  reputation,  Trollope  says,  of  being  ''the 
biggest  liar  in  the  school."'  He  seems  to  have  been 
a  delicate,  handsome,  undistinguished  pupil  of  proper 
character.  His  virtuous  mother  wished  him  to  become 
a  priest,  and  he  received  the  tonsure  at  Volterra  in  1809. 
In  October  he  was  sent  to  continue  his  studies  at  Rome, 

'  The  contradiction  is  characteristic  of  the  literature  on  Pius  IX. 
Most  of  it  was  written  before  or  just  after  his  death  and  is  fiercely  par- 
tisan. Petruccelli  della  Gattina's  Pie  IX.  (1866)  is  the  chief  and  least 
reliable  of  the  hostile  biographies:  T.  A.  Trollope's  Story  of  the  Life  of 
Pius  IX.  (2  vols.,  1877)  is  one  of  the  most  temperate  of  the  anti-Papal 
works  and  still  has  some  use:  F.  Hitchman's  Pius  the  Ninth  (1878)  is 
slighter  but  equally  moderate.  Such  studies  as  those  of  Shea,  Maguire, 
Dawson,  Wappmannsperger  (2  vols.),  Stepischnegg  (2  vols.),  Pougeois 
(6  vols.),  and  Freiherr  von  Helfert  are  equally  prejudiced  on  the  Catho- 
lic side.  The  best  study  of  the  character  and  work  of  Pius  is  Dr.  F. 
Nielsen's  Papacy  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  (2  vols.,  1906),  a  temperate 
(perhaps  not  sufficiently  critical)  and  scholarly  work.  Bishop  G.  S. 
Pelczav's  Pio  IX.  e  il  sua  Pontificate  (3  vols.,  Italian  translation  1909) 
is  learned  but  fulsome  and  undiscriminating.  Father  R.  Ballerini's 
incomplete  study  (published  as  Les  premieres  pages  du  Pojitificat  dii 
Pape  Pie  IX.,  1909)  has  no  distinction.  For  special  aspects  sec  D. 
Silvagni,  La  Corte  e  la  Socicld  Romana  (1885),  and  Count  von  Hoens- 
broech's  Rom  und  das  Zentrtitn  (1910),  and  works  quoted  hereafter. 


394   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

and  for  some  months  he  Hved  in  the  Quirinal,  in  charge 
of  an  uncle  who  was  a  canon  of  St.  Peter's.     They  were 
related  to  Pius  VII.  and  were  favoured.     The  French 
invasion  of  1810  drove  them  back  to  SinigagHa,  and 
Giovanni    was    summoned   for   service   in   the    Noble 
Guard  of  the  Viceroy  of  Italy.     His  epileptic  tendency 
was  successfully  pleaded  for  exemption,  and  he  returned 
to  Rome  in  18 14.     It  seems,  however,  that  he  was  not 
deeply  religious,  and  he  applied  for  service  in  the  Papal 
Guard  rather  than  for  orders.'     His  fits  closed   the 
military  service  of  the  Pope  against  him,  and,  on  the 
letter  of  the  law,  should  equally  exclude  him  from  the 
clergy.     He  became  very  depressed  and  morose,  but 
Pius  VII.  strained  the  regulations  in  favour  of  his  young 
relative.   He  was  to  receive  ordination  on  condition  that 
he  never  said  mass  without  an  assistant.     In  18 19  he 
became  a  priest,  and  made  the  small  progress  which  a 
distant  relative  of  the  Pope  might  expect.     In  1823  he 
accompanied  a  Papal  representative  to  Chile,  and  the 
voyage  probably  strengthened  his  constitution.     Pius 
VII.  died  during  his  absence  from  Rome,  but  as  Gio- 
vanni's protector.  Cardinal  della  Ganga,  became  Pope, 
he  returned  to  favour  at  Rome.     He  received  a  canonry, 
the  administration  of  the  Hospital  of  St.  Michael,  and 
(in  1827)  the  archbishopric  of  Spoleto. 

It  is  clear  that  the  young  Archbishop  did  excellent 
work  at  Spoleto,  and  we  must  read  with  discretion  the 
statements  of  his  less  temperate  critics.  His  predeces- 
sor had  been  idle  and  worthless,  and  Mastai-Ferretti 
applied  himself  with  zeal,  judgment,  and  success  to  the 
reform  of  clergy  and  laity.     In  1829   Leo   XII.,   his 

'  Ballerini  and  Helfert  deny  this  but  Pclczar  and  Nielsen  make  it  clear. 
The  graver  statement  of  the  hostile  biographers — that  he  spent  his  youth 
in  dissipation — rests  on  no  respectable  evidence. 


Pius  IX.  395 

patron,  died,  and  Pius  VIII.  entered  upon  his  short  and 
futile  Pontificate.  Gregory  XVI.,  who  succeeded  him, 
at  once  met  the  blasts  of  the  Revolution  of  1830.  The 
outbreak  at  Rome  was  suppressed,  but  the  revolution- 
aries captured  Bologna  and  brought  about  a  dangerous 
agitation  throughout  Italy.  Mastai-Ferretti  is  said 
to  have  been  compelled  to  fly  from  Spoleto,  but  his 
actions  and  attitude  at  this  time  are  not  wholly  clear. 
Austrian  troops  suppressed  the  Revolution,  and  Greg- 
ory entered  upon  that  truculent  crusade  against  the 
Liberals  and  their  claims  which  diverted  England  from 
its  new  alliance  with  the  Papacy  and  even  shocked 
Metternich.  When  the  Austrians  compelled  him  to 
take  the  Secretaryship  of  State  from  Cardinal  Bernetti, 
he  bestowed  it  on  the  more  intemperate  Cardinal  Lam- 
bruschini,  and  the  struggle  with  the  Carbonari  and  the 
Young  Italians  continued.  In  his  Encyclical  Mirari 
Vos  (August  15,  1832)  Gregory  pledged  the  Papacy 
to  a  stern  refusal  of  the  democratic  reforms  which  the 
new  Europe  demanded. 

Mastai-Ferretti  had  meantime  (February  16,  1832) 
been  removed  to  the  bishopric  of  Imola:  a  more  pro- 
fitable see  and  a  recognized  path  to  higher  honours. 
His  amiable  and  conciliatory  character  inclined  him  to 
meet  the  more  moderate  Liberals  with  ease,  though  he 
does  not  seem  to  have  made  any  profound  study  of  the 
political  development  of  his  time.  When  Cardinal 
Lambruschini  condemned  scientific  associations,  the 
Bishop  of  Imola  is  reported  to  have  commented  that  he 
saw  no  inconsistency  between  science  and  religion.  On 
these  safe  and  innocuous  expressions  the  Bishop  won  a 
repute  for  "Liberalism"  among  the  more  reactionary 
members  of  the  Curia,  and  Gregory  XVI.  long  hesitated 
to  raise  him  to  the  cardinalate.     He  was  an  exemplary 


396  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

bishop,  and  in  the  reform  of  education  and  of  philan- 
thropic institutions  he  performed  no  slight  social  service, 
which  may  have  attracted  the  esteem  of  the  more 
moderate  Liberals.  He  was  admitted  to  the  Sacred 
College  on  December  14,  1840,  and  continued  for  six 
years  to  direct  his  diocese  and  encourage  those  temper- 
ate reforms  which  most  of  his  colleagues  were  too  indo- 
lent or  too  prejudiced  to  favour.  The  condition  of  the 
Church  was  again  becoming  critical.  The  Carbonari 
were  weakened  and  dispersed  in  Italy,  but  Mazzini 
had  begun  to  lead  "the  Youth  of  Italy  "  to  a  more  open 
and  more  heretical  attack  on  Austria  and  the  Papacy, 
while  high-minded  and  humanitarian  priests  like  Gio- 
berti,  Ventura,  and  Rosmini  in  Italy,  and  Lamennais 
in  France,  were,  in  varying  degrees,  looking  to  a  Cath- 
olic Liberalism  to  ease  the  pressure  of  the  growing 
popular  revolt.  Gregory  XVI.  and  his  advisers  re- 
garded the  entire  Liberal  movement,  in  every  shade,  as 
a  sinful  and  temporary  aberration.  They  passed  the 
most  drastic  laws  for  its  suppression:  the  prisons  of 
Italy  were  distended  with  their  victims :  yet  their  ortho- 
dox militia,  the  Sanfedisti,  had  to  wage  a  perpetual  and 
bitter  struggle  against  the  spreading  revolt. 

We  who  look  back  on  this  painful  travail  of  the  birth 
of  democracy  are  at  times  unduly  impatient  with  ideal- 
ists who  failed  to  recognize  its  promise  at  the  time. 
Not  merely  ecclesiastical  statesmen,  but  heterodox 
observers  and  sons  of  the  people  like  Carlyle,  looked 
upon  the  new  movement  as  an  emanation  from  the  pit, 
a  menace  to  society.  But  most  biographers  pass  to  the 
opposite  extreme  when  they  conceive  Pius  IX.  as 
judiciously  studying  the  demands  of  the  age,  realizing 
that  a  moderate  measure  of  democracy  and  liberty  was 
just  and  inevitable,  and  then  renouncing  his  Liberal 


Pius  IX.  397 

faith  when  he  saw  the  excesses  of  the  democrats.  For 
this  there  is  no  documentary  support.  Pius  was  ami- 
able, accessible,  and  anxious  to  please  all:  he  was 
neither  a  statesman  nor  an  economist,  and  had  not  a 
firm  judgment  of  the  European  situation.  He  was 
disposed  to  see  justice  in  the  semi- Liberalism  of  Gio- 
berti  or  Ventura,  and  disposed  the  next  day  to  listen 
to  the  Mephistophelean  counsels  of  Metternich.  Eu- 
rope was  to  him  a  world  in  which  a  large  number  of 
thoughtful  people  demanded  reforms  which  were 
consistent  with  the  political  and  religious  supremacy 
of  the  Papacy,  and  he  was  disposed  to  favour  and 
indulge  them.  He  failed  to  realize,  until  1848,  that 
the  firm  and  consistent  demands  of  the  new  age  were 
inconsistent  with  Papal  supremacy.  But  he  clearly 
disliked  the  mediaeval  policy  of  the  Curia  and  he  was 
regarded  with  hope  by  the  reformers  within  the  fold. 
It  was  they  who  greeted  his  election  in  June,  1846.  The 
more  radical  Italians  did  not  want  a  reforming  Pope, 
because  they  did  not  want  a  Papacy. 

Pius  was  crowned  on  June  21st,  and  at  once  turned  to 
what  he  would  regard  as  "democratic"  measures.  He 
gave  dowries  to  a  thousand  poor  girls,  and  decreed  that 
all  pledges  in  the  Monte  di  Pieta  which  were  less  in  value 
than  two  lire  should  be  returned  to  their  owners.  On 
July  1 6th  he  declared  a  general  amnesty  of  political 
prisoners,  and  the  Romans  flocked  to  the  Quirinal  to 
cheer  their  handsome  and  courageous  Pope,  and  de- 
monstrations of  joy  resounded  throughout  Italy.  The 
amnesty  was  in  reality  conditional:  the  released  pris- 
oners and  returning  exiles  were  to  promise  not  again  to 
"disturb  the  public  order. "  However,  there  was  at  the 
time  no  severe  application  of  the  condition,  and  Pius 
continued  in  his  reforming  mood.     That  he  had  no 


398  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
serious  leaning  to  Liberalism  he  made  abundantly  clear 
to  the  more  thoughtful  before  the  end  of  the  year.  On 
November  9th  he  issued  an  Encyclical  in  which  he  con- 
demned Bible  Societies,  secret  political  societies,  critics 
of  the  Church,  license  of  the  press,  and  so  on/  The 
Radicals  still  mingled  with  the  crowds  below  his  bal- 
cony and  flattered  him.  Some,  no  doubt,  had  the  idea 
that  he  might  be  induced  to  go  farther;  but  Mazzini 
and  others  have  revealed  that  they  astutely  used  these 
demonstrations  to  educate  the  people  in  larger  demands 
and  provoke  a  more  serious  revolt.  Pius  threw  open 
his  garden  to  the  public  on  certain  days,  opened  night 
schools  and  Sunday  schools,  re-opened  the  Accademia 
dei  Lincei  (for  the  promotion  of  science),  and  discussed 
plans  of  railways  for  Italy.  He  was  in  a  patriarchal 
mood  which  came  near  to  social  idealism.  Journals 
multiplied,  and  clubs  became  active:  especially  the 
Circolo  Romano,  which  gradually  came  under  the 
influence  of  a  prosperous  and  very  radical  publican 
from  the  Trastevere,  Angelo  Brunetti,  nicknamed  "little 
Cicero"  (Ciceruacchio)  for  his  demagogic  eloquence. 
The  dreamy  Christian  Liberals,  Gioberti  and  Ventura, 
gave  the  not  very  penetrating  Pope  the  idea  that  he  was 
going  to  make  a  model  State  of  Papal  Italy  and,  through 
it,  to  lead  the  world  on  the  new  upward  path. 

The  Radicals  encouraged  the  clouds  of  incense  which 
obscured  the  Pope's  vision,  and  he  listened  gravely  to 
the  requests  for  representative  government.  On  April 
19,  1847,  he  proposed  a  Consulto  di  Stato:  a  council 
composed  of  laymen  from  the  various  provinces — all 
carefully  selected  by  the  clergy  and  gravely  reminded 
that  their  business  was  merely  to  offer  suggestions. 
In  July  he  formed  a  Civic  Guard  for  Rome:  in  Novem- 

'  Lettres  Apostoliques  de  Pie  IX.,  p.  177. 


Pius  IX.  399 

ber  he  inaugurated  a  scheme  of  municipal  administra- 
tion for  Rome :  and  at  the  close  of  December  he  formed 
a  ministry — of  cardinals  and  other  clerical  dignitaries. 
By  this  time,  however,  Pius  had  become  perplexed  and 
suspicious.  Cardinal  Gizzi,  his  Secretary  of  State, 
resigned,  the  Gregorian  cardinals  frowned,  and  the 
Austrians  complained  of  his  concessions.  There  was  a 
banquet  in  Rome  to  Cobden,  and  there  was  a  very  noisy 
and  triumphant  banquet  to  Ciceruacchio.  The  Pope 
forbade  popular  demonstrations,  yet  he  perceived  daily 
that  his  concessions  did  nothing  to  appease  the  popular 
appetite.  The  Italians  demanded  elected,  lay  officers. 
To  make  matters  worse  for  the  Pope  the  Austrians 
advanced  against  the  Papal  States.  The  difference 
was  adjusted,  but  from  the  summer  of  1847  hostility  to 
Austria  increased  rapidly,  and  the  people  demanded 
an  efficient  Papal  army  to  resist  them.  When,  on 
February  8th,  the  news  came  of  the  third  French 
Revolution,  the  agitators,  who  had  now  complete 
influence,  became  bolder.  Ciceruacchio  himself,  sup- 
ported by  the  Liberal  Princes  Corsini  and  Borghese,  saw 
the  Pope,  and  demanded  war  on  Austria  and  democratic 
institutions.  At  sight  of  the  massive  and  resolute 
crowds  which  supported  them,  the  Pope  promised  a  lay 
ministry  and  a  more  efficient  army;  but  on  the  follow- 
ing day  he,  addressing  the  crowd  in  patriarchal  terms, 
complained  of  the  excessive  demands  of  a  "minority" 
among  them  and  protested  that  the  Papacy  needed  no 
war  on  Austria,  as  the  Catholic  Powers  would  protect 
it.  The  Radical  leaders  saw  his  weakness,  and  under 
their  steady  pressure  he  began  to  make  his  famous 
concessions  to  democracy.  A  new  ministry,  with  lay 
nobles  in  most  of  the  positions,  was  formed  in  March, 
the  Jesuits  were  advised  to  leave  Rome,  the  ancient 


400  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
walls  and  restrictions  of  the  Ghetto  were  abolished,  and 
a  constitution  was  granted.  The  members  of  the 
Lower  Chamber  were  to  be  elected,  but  the  College  of 
Cardinals  would  have  a  veto  on  the  proceedings  of  both 
houses,  and  they  could  not  discuss  ecclesiastical  or 
" mixed "  affairs:  a  very  grave  restriction  in  a  theocratic 
State. 

The  Radicals  now  concentrated  the  people  on  the  cry 
of  war  with  Austria,  and  on  that  issue  the  Pope  fell. 
The  Papal  troops  had  crossed  the  frontier  in  support 
of  the  Sardinians,  and,  as  Pius  refused  to  declare  war, 
the  Austrians  treated  them  as  brigands.  The  meetings 
in  Rome  became  more  and  more  violent,  the  new 
ministry  resigned,  and,  as  Pius  still  refused  to  declare 
war,  a  second  ministry  handed  in  its  resignation.  The 
summer  and  autumn  of  1848  passed  in  this  struggle. 
Pius  insisted  that  war  was  not  consistent  with  his 
religious  character,  and  all  Rome  united  in  opposing 
him.  In  November,  at  the  suggestion  of  Rosmini,  the 
Pope  ordered  Pellegrino  Rossi  to  form  a  new  ministry. 
Rossi,  a  friend  of  Napoleon  III.,  was  hated  by  the 
Radicals,  and  his  dream  of  a  union  of  Italian  princes 
under  the  Pope's  direction  conflicted  with  their  plan  of 
a  united  and  free  Italy.  He  was  assassinated  on  Novem- 
ber 15th,  and  on  the  following  day  a  vast  crowd,  partly 
armed,  marched  to  the  Quirinal  and  peremptorily  laid 
down  their  claims.  In  the  confusion  a  prelate  at  one 
of  the  windows  was  shot,  and  the  Pope,  seeing  the  Roman 
Guard  mingling  with  the  crowd,  abjectly  surrendered, 
and  retired  to  disavow  his  concession  and  prepare  for 
flight.  The  situation  was  very  grave,  and  the  action 
of  the  Pope  was  far  from  heroic.  It  is  not  a  maxim  of 
the  higher  morality  that  you  may  evade  an  angry 
crowd  by  making  promises  that  you  do  not  intend  to 


Pius  IX.  401 

fulfil,  or  that  you  may  afterwards  discover  that  such 
promises  were  void. 

The  sequel  is  well-known.  With  the  assistance  of  the 
foreign  ambassadors  the  Pope,  disguised  as  a  simple 
priest,  fled  to  Gaeta.  So  great  was  his  concern  that 
when  the  King  of  Naples,  warned  of  his  flight,  came  the 
next  day  and  inquired  for  the  Pope,  the  officials  at 
Gaeta  were  quite  unaware  that  Pius  had  been  amongst 
them  for  twenty-four  hours.  The  cardinals  gathered 
about  him,  and  he  appealed  to  the  Catholic  Powers  to 
restore  his  authority  and  suppress  the  rebels.  It  is 
not  an  entirely  accurate  analysis  to  say  that  the  Pope's 
"  Liberalism"  now  ended,  and  he  became  a  reactionary. 
He  had  been  duped  by  the  Radicals  and  had  never 
understood  his  subjects.  A  feeble  and  carefully 
controlled  lay  representation,  with  neither  legislative 
nor  executive  power,  was  not  a  part  of  the  Liberal  creed. 
Pius  IX.  was  never  a  Liberal.  He  was  from  the  first 
unwilling  to  surrender  the  absolute  authority  of  the 
clergy,  to  grant  freedom  of  discussion,  to  abolish  the 
monstrous  growth  of  clerical  officialdom,  or  to  apply 
a  fitting  proportion  of  the  income  of  the  Papal  States 
to  their  effective  military  defence.  When  he  saw  that 
even  moderate  Liberals  demanded  these  things,  he 
recognized  that  he  had  never  been  in  agreement  with 
them,  and  that  his  own  half-measures  were  of  no  value. 
He  now  further  recognized  that  the  advanced  Liberals 
had  captured  his  people,  and  he  turned,  quite  logically, 
to  a  policy  of  oppression.  There  was  no  material 
change  of  his  political  faith. 

From  Gaeta  he  appointed  a  "governing  commission" 

(under  a  cardinal)  for  Rome,  and,  when  the  people 

refused  it  and  set  up  a  Republic,  he  placidly  entrusted 

his  case  to  France,  Spain,  Naples,  and  Sardinia,  and 

26 


402  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

devoted  himself  to  the  preparation  of  the  dogma  of  the 
Immaculate  Conception  of  Mary.  Rosmini  was  still 
with  him,  urging  compromise  with  the  democrats,  but 
the  somewhat  unscrupulous  Cardinal  Antonelli,  who 
now  became  Secretary  of  State,  astutely  destroyed  the 
influence  of  the  reformer,  and  confirmed  Pius  in  his 
attitude  of  defiance  and  repression.  Even  when  the 
French  troops — apparently  thinking  that  they  could 
seduce  the  Romans  to  admit  them  in  peace  and  could 
then  compel  the  Pope  to  adopt  a  conciliatory  policy — 
crushed  the  Roman  Republic,  and  reopened  the  gates 
to  the  Pope,  Pius  did  not  hasten  to  return.  On  Sep- 
tember 4th  he  left  Gaeta  for  Portici,  and  it  was  not 
until  April  12,  1850,  that  he  returned  to  the  Quirinal. 
The  crowd  ironically  applauded  Pio  Nono  Secondo. 

The  Pope  had  replied  to  the  French  appeals  for  a 
promise  of  reform  that  it  was  not  consistent  with  his 
dignity  to  make  promises  under  apparent  pressure,  but 
he  had  consented  to  the  creation  of  new  political  in- 
stitutions. From  Portici  he  promised  a  new  Consiglio 
di  Stato,  a  Consiglio  dei  Ministri,  and  a  Consulta  di 
Stato.  These  were  wholly  under  clerical  control,  and 
the  elections  for  the  District  Councils,  the  only  bodies 
which  were  to  have  free  popular  representatives,  were 
soon  suppressed.  But  there  is  little  need  to  dwell  on 
the  second  phase  of  Papal  government  under  Pius  IX. 
Cardinal  Antonelli  and  the  Jesuits  had  a  paramount 
influence,  and  the  dream  of  enlightenment  and  self- 
government  was  roughly  dissipated.  Between  1850 
and  1855  the  Roman  Council  alone  passed  ninety 
sentences  of  death,  and  the  prisons  were  again  thickly 
populated ;  while  the  disorders  of  finance  and  adminis- 
tration, and  the  appalling  illiteracy  of  the  people  in  an 
age  of  advancing  education,  were  scrupulously  main- 


Pius  IX.  403 

tained.  The  scandal  which  in  later  years  followed  the 
death  of  Antonelli— the  spectacle  of  his  natural  daughter 
struggling  for  his  vast  fortune,  though  he  was  a  son  of 
the  people — sufficiently  disclosed  the  character  of  that 
able  and  indelicate  minister,  while  the  Jesuits  were  not 
unmindful  that  the  first  act  of  the  revolution  had  been 
to  expel  them.  They  had  sent  some  of  their  abler 
representatives  to  Gaeta,  and  from  that  time  they  had 
a  deep  influence  on  the  ecclesiastical  policy  of  the  Pope, 
while  Antonelli  ruled  the  Papal  States  and  offered  what 
Lord  Clarendon  called  a  "  scandal  to  Europe. "  Within 
little  over  a  year  of  the  Pope's  return  there  were  more 
than  8000  political  prisoners  in  the  Papal  jails,  while 
the  ignorant  people  were  oppressed  by  heavy  taxes 
and  an  army  of  clerical  officials. 

It  is  probable  that  Pius  IX.  had  no  clearer  perception 
of  the  state  of  Europe  and  Italy  after  the  revolution  of 
1849  than  he  had  had  in  the  earlier  years.  He  devoted 
his  attention  to  spiritual  matters  and  listened,  in  tem- 
poral concerns,  to  the  suave  assurances  of  Antonelli. 
This  pacified  Europe  was  to  be  weaned  from  its  bad 
dreams  by  a  cult  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  devotion  to  the 
Immaculate  Conception  of  Mary,  and  so  on.  His  first 
important  act  (September  29,  1850)  was  to  re-estab- 
lish the  hierarchy  in  England,  to  the  great  alarm  and 
anger  of  the  English  Protestants.  England  had  quickly 
lost  its  passing  sympathy  with  the  Papacy,  and  English 
travellers  took  home  dreadful  accoimts  of  the  condition 
of  the  Papal  States.  The  Pope  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  acquainted  either  with  the  disgust  of  the  English 
at  the  state  of  his  dominion  or  with  the  fact  that  the 
apparent  restoration  of  the  old  faith  in  England  meant 
little  more  than  a  vast  immigration  from  famine-stricken 
Ireland. 


404  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

He  then  applied  himself  to  securing  the  dogma  of  the 
Immaculate  Conception  of  Mary.  From  Gaeta  in 
1849,  while  Mazzini  and  his  colleagues  ruled  Rome  and 
Antonelli  struggled  with  the  representatives  of  the  rival 
Catholic  Powers  for  his  restoration,  Pius  had  sent  out 
some  five  hundred  letters  to  the  bishops  of  the  world, 
inviting  their  opinion  on  the  doctrine.  It  had  long 
passed  the  stage  of  being  a  disputed  academic  thesis, 
and  most  of  the  replies  were  favourable.  The  Jesuits, 
who  had  become  the  special  protagonists  of  the  doctrine, 
fostered  the  native  piety  of  the  Pope,  and  on  December 
8,  1854,  it  became  a  dogma  of  the  Church. ' 

In  1857  Pius  made  a  tour  of  the  Italian  provinces. 
His  chief  purpose  was  to  visit  the  Holy  House  of 
Loretto,  but  the  intriguers  of  the  Quirinal  used  the 
opportunity  to  enhance  the  Pope's  illusion  that  only  a 
few  negligible  fanatics  quarrelled  with  the  Papal 
government.  In  the  previous  year  the  diplomatists 
assembled  at  the  Congress  of  Paris  had  censured  that 
government  in  the  most  violent  terms  and  demanded 
reform.  It  is  hardly  likely  that  their  comments  were 
put  before  the  Pope,  and  care  was  taken  that  his  recep- 
tion in  the  provinces  should  flatter  his  genial  love  of 
popularity.  Inconvenient  petitioners  were  refused  ac- 
cess to  him,  and  the  clergy  and  more  devout  laity 
greeted  him  with  applause.  Gregorovius,  who  was  then 
in  Rome,  notes  in  his  Diary  that  Pius  returned  to  the 
Quirinal  full  of  joy ;  and  a  few  years  later  the  inhabitants 
of  these  provinces  would  vote,  by  an  overwhelming 
majority,  for  the  abolition  of  the  Papal  government. 

In   the  following   year  the   graver  development  of 

'  The  original  documents  relating  to  the  Pope's  actions  will  be  found 
in  the  Acta  Pii  Noni,  Acta  SanctcB  Scdis,  and  Discorsi  del  Sunimo 
Ponlefice  Pio  IX.  (1872-8). 


Pius  IX.  405 

Italian  politics  began.  Napoleon  III.,  whose  protection 
of  the  corrupt  Papal  system  had  infuriated  the  Liberals, 
met  Cavour  secretly  at  Plombieres  and  agreed,  in  case 
of  attack  by  Austria,  to  help  the  King  of  Sardinia  in  his 
ambition;  his  reward  would  be  the  provinces  of  Nice 
and  Savoy.  The  attempt  by  Orsini  in  the  following 
January  to  assassinate  Napoleon  did  not  help  the  diplo- 
matists of  the  Vatican,  as  Cavour  plausibly  urged  that 
the  tyranny  of  the  Papal  States  was  responsible  for  the 
rebels  who  were  scattered  over  Europe,  and  the  struggle 
for  the  unity  of  Italy  went  on  from  year  to  year.  The 
war  between  Sardinia  and  Austria  broke  out  in  the 
spring  of  1859,  and  Austria  was  defeated  at  Magenta 
and  retired  from  the  Legations.  These  provinces  were 
resolutely  opposed  to  a  return  of  clerical  government, 
and  Cavour,  whose  monarch  was  not  yet  prepared  for 
war  on  the  Papacy,  sent  one  representative  after  another 
to  persuade  the  Pope  to  permit  the  appointment  of  lay 
rulers  of  Parma,  Modena,  Tuscany,  and  Romagna,  under 
his  suzerainty.  Antonelli  and  Pius  refused  to  make  the 
least  concession  to  the  rebels,  nor  were  the  provincials 
disposed  to  assent  to  such  a  settlement.  After  some 
months  of  insurgence  and  bloody  repression,  a  plebis- 
cite was  organized  in  the  Legations  (March  11,  i860) 
and  an  overwhelming  majority  voted  for  incorporation 
in  the  kingdom  of  Sardinia.  In  spite  of  the  Pope's 
fulminations,  Sardinia  accepted  the  vote,  and  Napoleon 
received  Nice  and  Savoy  as  the  price  of  his  acquiescence. 
Dismayed  and  perplexed  by  the  futility  of  his  appeals 
to  the  Catholic  Powers  and  of  the  spiritual  censures  at 
his  disposal,  the  Pope  now  invited  volunteers,  and 
crowds  of  undisciplined  Irish  and  French  Catholics  came 
to  swell  the  little  Papal  army  and  fall  with  truculent 
piety  on  the  rebellious  districts.    Garibaldi,  on  the  other 


4o6  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

hand,  forced  the  halting  designs  of  Cavour,  and,  with 
the  cry  of  "Rome  or  Death,"  flung  his  irregular  troops 
into  the  struggle.  After  a  vain  effort  at  peaceful 
settlement,  Cavour,  "in  the  interest  of  humanity,"  sent 
the  Sardinian  regulars  into  the  Papal  States,  and  the 
Pope's  forces  were  destroyed  in  September  at  Castel 
Fidardo  (in  sight  of  the  Holy  House  of  Loretto)  and 
Ancona.  A  plebiscite  was  organized  in  Umbria  and  the 
Marches,  and  there  is  no  serious  ground  to  question 
that  the  figures  published  express  the  sentiment  of  the 
provinces.  In  Umbria  99,075  voted  for  Victor  Em- 
manuel and  380  for  the  Pope:  in  the  Marches  133,783 
voted  for  Sardinia  and  12 12  for  Rome.  A  large  allow- 
ance for  abstentions  does  not  alter  the  significance  of 
these  figures. 

Pius  still  protected,  by  a  conviction  that  the  plebiscite 
had  been  fraudulent,  his  illusion  that  only  a  disreput- 
able minority  resented  his  beneficent  government,  and 
the  diplomacy  of  the  Quirinal  during  the  next  ten  years 
was  the  least  enlightened  that  could  have  been  devised 
for  securing  the  slender  remaining  territory.  Many 
cardinals,  and  even  Antonelli,  came  to  see  that  a  re- 
cognition of  Victor  Emmanuel  as  King  of  Italy  would 
be  the  wiser  course,  but  Pius,  supported  by  the  Jesuits 
(who  had  founded  their  Civiltd  Cattolica,  as  an  organ 
of  Papal  sentiment,  in  1850),  obstinately  refused  to 
temporize.  He  would  have  no  negotiation  with  "the 
robbers,"  the  excommunicated  rebels  against  God. 
He  retained — or  the  French  troops  still  retained  for  him 
— only  Rome  and  the  Roman  district,  and  proclaimed 
that  he  relied  on  Catholic  Europe  to  restore  his  full 
rights.  Years  were  spent  in  vain  efforts  to  induce  him 
to  surrender  his  temporal  power,  or  to  recognize  Victor 
Emmanuel  as  his  "  Vicar"  in  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  and 


Pius  IX.  407 

in  the  meantime  the  Italian  aspiration  for  Rome  as  a 
capital  grew  stronger,  and  the  Pope's  obstinate  reten- 
tion of  his  temporal  possessions  was  easily  represented 
in  an  unfavourable  light  throughout  Europe.  The 
cardinals  were  not  indifferent  to  the  offer  of  10,000  scudi 
a  year  and  seats  in  the  Italian  Senate;  and  Antonelli 
was  won  by  a  promise  of  3,000,000  scudi  and  rich  gifts 
for  his  family.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the 
rapid  development  of  anti-clericalism  in  Italy  during 
the  sixties,  and  the  growing  disdain  of  Rome  in  England 
and  France,  would  have  been  materially  checked  if  the 
Pope  had  been  more  sagacious.  He  dreamed  that  the 
Catholic  world  still  shared  the  crusading  fervour  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  he  was  insensible  of  the  selfish 
motives  of  France,  Naples,  and  Austria. 

In  the  midst  of  the  negotiations  he  committed  the 
grave  blunder  of  issuing  his  Encyclical  Quanta  Cura 
(December  8,  1864)  with  the  famous  accompanying 
Syllabus,  or  list  of  eighty  condemned  propositions. 
There  is  no  need  to  analyze  here  that  mediaeval  indict- 
ment of  the  modern  spirit.  Many  of  the  propositions 
are  now  commonplaces  in  the  mind  of  every  educated 
Catholic,  and  it  is  precisely  their  boast  that — to  use 
some  of  the  condemned  words — the  Catholic  Church 
may  be  reconciled  with  "progress,  liberty,  and  the  new 
civilization."  The  pages  of  the  Civiltd  Cattolica 
sufficiently  indicate  who  were  the  Pope's  unhappy 
inspirers.  In  brief,  the  document  convinced  Europe 
that  Rome  insisted  on  being  driven  off  the  path  of 
progress  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  and  in  1866  the 
French  evacuated  Rome,  leaving  the  Pope  only  2000 
mercenary  soldiers,  who  were  to  don  his  uniform. 
When  Garibaldi  made  his  third  impulsive  inroad — the 
second,  in  1862,  had  been  arrested  by  the  Piedmontese — 


4o8   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

in  October,  1867,  the  French  arrested  him,  but  the  war 
of  1870  gave  Italy  its  opportunity.  On  September  20, 
1870,  the  ItaHan  troops  entered  the  breach  in  the 
Roman  walls,  and  the  long  and  romantic  story  of  the 
temporal  power  of  the  Popes  was  over.  By  the  Law  of 
Guarantees  (May  15,  187 1)  Italy  granted  the  Pope 
sovereign  rights,  with  an  annual  income  of  3,250,000 
lire  and  an  extension  of  extraterritorial  rights  to  certain 
Roman  palaces.  By  a  final  error  Pius  refused  to 
acknowledge  his  position,  set  up  the  melodramatic 
fiction  of  "  the  Prisoner  of  the  Vatican, "  and,  by  forbid- 
ding Catholics  to  take  part  in  the  elections  of  the  new 
kingdom,  allowed  Italy  to  drift  farther  and  farther 
away  from  his  spiritual  control. ' 

Meantime  the  famous  Vatican  Council  had  crowned 
his  more  purely  ecclesiastical  work.  The  idea  of 
summoning  the  whole  Christian  world  to  a  second  and 
greater  Trent,  of  healing  religious  dissensions  and  unit- 
ing religious  forces  against  modernism,  had  dazzled 
the  imagination  of  the  Pope  at  Gaeta.  His  advisers 
encouraged  him,  and  in  1865  he  appointed  a  commission 
to  discuss  the  subject.  In  1867,  when  his  heart  was 
uplifted  by  the  great  gathering  at  Rome  for  the  cele- 
bration of  the  (supposed)  eighteenth  centenary  of  the 
martyrdom  of  St.  Peter,  he  announced  the  council, 
and  in  the  following  year  (June  28,  1868)  the  Bull 
^lerni  Patris  invited  all  Christians— heretic  and  schis- 
matic, as  well  as  orthodox — to  the  Vatican  Council  of 
1869.  It  was  opened  on  December  8th,  when  719 
members  assembled  from  the  Catholic  world. 

'  In  the  plebiscite  which  was  taken  in  the  city  of  Rome  40,785  voted 
for  incorporation  and  forty-six  for  the  Pope:  in  the  city  and  province 
133,681  voted  for  incorporation  and  1507  against.  Naturally,  the 
minority  is  not  fully  represented,  as  many  refused  to  vote. 


Pius  IX.  409 

The  great  issue — the  one  issue  that  may  be  discussed 
here — was  the  question  of  defining  the  infalHbihty  of  the 
Pope.  Here  again  the  Jesuits  ardently  supported  the 
wish  of  Pius  IX.,  and  a  struggle  had  taken  place  in 
the  Catholic  world  for  some  years.  It  was  known  that 
such  devout  and  influential  priests  as  Newman  in 
England,  Bishop  Dupanloup  and  Archbishop  Darboy 
in  France,  and  Bishop  Ketteler  and  Cardinal  Schwarz- 
enberg  and  Dollinger  in  Germany,  opposed  the  defini- 
tion, and  the  greatest  care  was  taken  in  selecting 
members  of  the  council  whose  position  did  not  make 
them  entitled  to  sit  in  it.  When  Newman  was  proposed 
from  England,  Manning  (an  enthusiastic  supporter  of 
the  Papal  policy)  and  the  Jesuits  defeated  the  project, 
as  Purcell  has  since  established  in  his  life  of  Manning. 
When,  however,  the  seven  hundred  members  of  the 
council  had  assembled,  it  was  realized  that  between 
one  hundred  and  fifty  and  two  hundred  voters  regarded 
a  definition  of  infallibility  as  inopportune,  and  the 
procedure  and  control  of  the  council  were  diplomati- 
cally arranged.  What  Newman  called  "  the  aggressive, 
insolent  faction"  of  the  Infallibilists  strained  every 
nerve  to  destroy  the  opposition.  They  drew  up  a 
petition  to  the  Pope,  and  Pius  was  deeply  annoyed  to 
find  that  little  over  four  hundred  names  appeared  at  its 
foot;  and  of  the  signatories  the  majority  were  prelates 
who  lived  at  Rome  in  dependence  on  the  Quirinal. 

But  the  familiar  story  need  not  be  told  again  in 
detail.  The  debates  were  prolonged  into  the  broiling 
summer,  in  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  the  northern- 
ers, and  the  Pope's  indignation  at  the  minority  was 
freely  expressed.  When,  on  July  13th,  the  vote  was 
taken,  451  voted  "Aye,"  62  voted  a  qualified  "Aye" 
{Placet   jiixta    modimi),    and    88     voted    in    opposi- 


410  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

tion.  Pius  wavered,  and  was  disposed  to  listen  to 
counsels  of  compromise,  but  the  majority  pressed,  and 
the  stormy  debate  continued.  The  Inopportunists 
were  reduced  to  silence,  and  at  the  final  vote,  on  July 
1 8th,  only  two  voted  against  the  project;  though 
many  abstained  from  voting.  Time  has  thrown  a 
strange  light  on  that  historic  struggle.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  has  transpired  that  the  definition  was  drawn  up 
in  such  terms  that  the  controversialist  could  plausibly 
accommodate  it  with  the  known  blunders  of  earlier 
Popes,  and  few  followed  the  spirited  revolt  of  Dollinger: 
on  the  other  hand,  the  Papacy  has  from  that  day  to  this 
made  no  use  of  its  infallibility,  in  an  age  of  perplexing 
doubts,  and  the  ardour  of  the  Infallibilists  has  cooled. 
During  the  following  years  the  Pope  sank  once  more 
into  depression  as  the  situation  in  Italy  engendered 
grave  troubles.  Bible  Societies  and  Protestant  churches 
appeared  in  Italy,  even  in  Rome,  and  Pius  vainly  de- 
noimced  the  monstrosity.  Bishops  dare  not  apply  to 
the  Italian  government  for  their  appointments,  and 
had  to  remain  without  incomes  and  palaces.  The 
Jesuits  were  expelled,  and  in  1872  a  law  of  dissolution 
menaced  the  8 151  members  of  religious  houses  in  Rome 
and  the  provinces.  Bavaria  refused  to  publish  the  Bull 
Pastor  Mternus,  and  its  struggle  with  the  Church 
extended  to  Prussia  and  culminated  in  the  long  and 
bitter  Kulturkampf  (1872- 1887).  In  France  the  anti- 
clerical Liberals  gained  from  year  to  year  on  the  Cath- 
olic reaction  which  had  followed  the  Commune  of  187 1, 
and  Gambetta's  battle-cry  rallied  the  old  forces  in 
alarming  numbers.  In  1876  (November  6th)  Anto- 
nelli  died,  and  the  grave  scandal  which  disclosed  his 
irregularities  gave  joy  to  the  enemies  of  the  Papacy. 
A  last  gleam  of  consolation  came  to  the  Pope  in  1877, 


Pius  IX.  411 

when  the  Catholic  world  held  a  magnificent  celebration, 
on  June  3d,  of  his  episcopal  jubilee.  But  the  aged 
Pope  saw  no  retreat  of  the  disastrous  forces  he  had 
encountered,  and,  after  the  longest  and  most  calamitous 
rule  in  Papal  history,  he  died  on  February  7,  1878. 

Little  need  be  added  in  regard  to  his  relations  with 
other  countries  than  France  and  Italy.  The  record  is 
one  of  both  successes  and  failures  which  were  misunder- 
stood at  Rome :  to  the  modern  historian  it  is  the  record 
of  the  lapse  of  millions  from  the  Roman  allegiance.  In 
the  United  States  forty-four  new  dioceses  were  estab- 
lished between  1847  and  1877,  yet  the  American  prelates 
of  the  time  bitterly  lament  the  loss  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  scattered  Catholic  immigrants.  In  Eng- 
land the  Romeward  movement  within  the  English 
Church  came  to  an  end  long  before  the  death  of  Pius, 
and  the  Church  made  no  numerical  progress  in  excess 
of  births  and  immigration.  In  Holland  the  hierarchy 
was  peacefully  restored,  but  in  Switzerland  there  was 
such  tension  that  the  Internuncio  was  expelled  in  1874. 
Russia  severed  relations  with  Rome  in  i860:  Wiirttem- 
berg  (1861)  and  Baden  (1859)  signed  Concordats  with 
Rome,  but  found  it  impossible  to  maintain  them:  and 
the  new  German  Empire  was,  as  I  said  previously, 
involved  by  Bismarck  and  Falk  in  a  bitter  struggle  with 
Rome. 

The  relations  with  Catholic  countries  were  little  more 
satisfactory.  Sardinia  had  mortally  offended  the 
Quirinal  long  before  the  struggle  for  Italian  unity  began : 
by  a  long  series  of  anti-clerical  measures  it  abolished 
tithes,  laicised  education  and  marriage,  expelled  the 
religious  orders  and  confiscated  their  property,  gave 
freedom  of  worship  to  Protestants,  and  dealt  summarily 
with    hostile    bishops.     Austria    had    signed    in    1855 


412   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

(August  1 8th)  a  Concordat  which  was  favourable  to  the 
Church,  but  the  young  Francis  Joseph,  whose  education 
had  been  carefully  directed  in  the  clerical  interest,  was 
forced  by  the  storm  of  opposition  to  deviate  from  it. 
It  was  abolished  in  1870,  and  four  years  later  laws  were 
passed  which  the  Vatican  regarded  as  anti-clerical. 
Spain  maintained,  through  its  various  revolutions,  a 
consistent  docility,  and  was  the  only  country  on  which 
the  dying  eyes  of  the  Pope  could  dwell  with  satisfaction. 
It  contracted  a  favourable  Concordat  on  March  16, 
1 85 1,  which  was  supplemented  in  1859.  Portugal 
signed  a  favourable  Concordat  in  1857.  ^^  Latin 
America  on  the  other  hand,  the  Church  suffered  grave 
reverses.  Costa  Rica  and  Guatemala  (1852),  Haiti 
(i860),  Nicaragua  (1861),  and  San  Salvador,  Honduras, 
Venezuela,  and  Ecuador  (1862)  signed  satisfactory 
Concordats,  but  Colombia,  Mexico,  Brazil,  Uraguay, 
and  Argentina  entered  upon  anti-clerical  ways,  and  the 
spirit  of  revolt  against  the  clergy  was  spreading  through- 
out Southern  and  Central  America.  Not  since  the 
days  of  Leo  X.  had  the  Church  suffered  such  grave  and 
widespread  defection. 

In  estimating  the  character  of  Pius  IX.  and  his  rela- 
tion to  these  losses  the  modern  historian  has  little 
difficulty.  The  exaggerations  of  both  his  critics  and 
his  panegyrists  are  patent.  He  was  a  sincerely  religious 
and  zealous  man,  but  the  hope  once  entertained  of  his 
canonization  (or,  at  least,  beatification)  was  as  absurd 
as  the  malevolent  attacks  on  his  character  from  the 
other  side.  His  intellectual  quality  must  be  similarly 
judged:  he  had  little  penetration,  no  breadth  of  mind, 
no  power  to  read  aright  the  symptoms  of  his  age.  In 
considering  the  fatal  obstinacy  with  which  he  refused  all 
accommodation  in  regard  to  his  temporal  power,  we 


Pius  IX.  413 

must  carefully  bear  in  mind  his  religious  views,  and  not 
merely  dwell  on  his  slight  capacity  for  diplomacy  or 
statesmanship.  So  grave  a  surrender  could  not  be 
commended  by  a  few  years  of  revolution  except  to  a 
man  of  greater  insight  and  foresight  than  Pius  IX. 
In  sum,  he  would  in  years  of  peace  and  piety  have  made 
an  excellent  and  undistinguished  steward  of  the  Papal 
heritage,  but  he  was  very  far  from  having  the  greatness 
of  mind  which  the  circumstances  of  the  Church  required, 
and  the  vast  organization  over  which  he  so  long  pre- 
sided emerged  still  further  weakened  from  its  second 
historical  crisis.  It  had  fought  Protestantism  and  lost : 
it  had  fought  Democracy  and  Progress  and  lost. 
It  remained  for  a  wiser  Pope  to  initiate  the  policy  of 
accommodation. 


CHAPTER  XX 


LEO   XIII 


WHEN  Leo  XHI.  mounted  the  Pontifical  throne, 
the  Papacy  had  had  three  quarters  of  a  century 
of  disastrous  experience  of  the  reactionary  poHcy.  The 
Restoration  of  1815  had  seemed  to  inaugurate  for  Rome 
a  new  period  of  prosperity.  The  touching  experiences 
of  Pius  Vn.  and  the  widely  recognized  need  of  combating 
by  religious  influence  the  new  spirit  of  revolt  disposed 
the  monarchs  of  Europe,  and  a  large  part  of  their  sub- 
jects, to  regard  the  successor  of  Peter  with  respect.  He 
had  been  their  ally  in  resisting  Napoleon :  he  was  their 
ally  in  restoring  feudalism,  England  moderated  its 
rude  tradition  of  "the  Scarlet  Woman."  The  Tsar  of 
the  Russias  felt  that  Romanism  was  a  large  element 
in  the  spiritual  renaissance  he  contemplated.  Louis 
XVHI.  remembered  how  altar  and  throne  had  fallen 
together.  Ferdinand  of  Spain  drowned  the  revolt  in 
blood.  Austria  reconsidered  its  Febronianism.  Italy 
seemed  incapable  of  rebelHon. 

But  the  revolutionary  wave  had  retired  only  to  come 
back  with  greater  effect,  and  from  1830  to  1850  the  face 
of  Europe  was  transformed.  The  Popes  almost  alone 
defied  the  spirit  to  which  monarchs  bowed,  and  they 
stood  almost  alone  amid  their  ruins.  England  returned 
to  its  disdain:  Russia  and  Switzerland  angrily  broke  off 

414 


Leo  XIII.  415 

relations  with  the  Vatican:  Germany  was  engaged  in 
what  the  Vatican  regarded  as  a  formidable  effort  to 
crush  CathoHcism  in  the  new  Empire.  Austria  was 
sullen  and  weakened.  France  was  rapidly  passing  into 
its  third  and  final  revolt  against  Catholicism.  Spain 
was  forced  into  an  alliance  with  the  growing  Liberals 
against  the  Carlists.  Italy  was  overwhelmingly  op- 
posed to  the  Papacy  on  what  the  Papacy  declared  to  be 
a  sacred  and  vital  issue,  and  was  honeycombed  with 
Rationalism.  Belgium  was  almost  dominated  by  a 
Liberal  middle  class.  The  South  American  republics 
were  falling  away  in  succession.  The  two  most  pro- 
foundly Catholic  peoples,  Ireland  and  Poland,  were 
ruined,  and  their  children  were  scattered  and  seduced. 
Thus  would  any  penetrating  cardinal  have  interpreted 
the  situation  of  the  Church  in  1878;  yet,  if  his  penetra- 
tion were  great  enough,  he  would  see  that  there  was  a 
tendency  among  this  Liberal  middle  class,  which  now 
dominated  Europe,  to  seek  once  more  an  alliance  with 
religion  against  the  deeper  social  heresies  which  were 
appearing.  Would  the  new  Pope  prove  subtle  enough 
to  grasp  that  opportunity  and  save  the  Church?  His 
"infallibility"  would  avail  little:  he  would  be  unwise 
to  emphasize  it.  He  must  be  a  diplomatist  and  a 
rhetorician. 

The  new  Pope,  Leo  XIII.,  was  nearly  sixty-eight 
years  old,  and  had  had  a  better  education  in  the  history 
of  the  nineteenth  century  than  most  of  the  Italian 
cardinals  had.  Gioacchino  Vincenzo  Raffaele  Luigi 
Pecci  was  born  on  March  2,  18 10,  at  Carpineto.  His 
first  lesson,  in  the  country  mansion,  would  be  to  hear  his 
father,  Colonel  Pecci,  and  his  very  pious  mother,  a 
Tertiary  of  the  Franciscan  Order,  talk  of  the  Napoleonic 
nightmare  that  had  just  passed  away.     From  the  age 


41 6  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

of  eight  to  fourteen  he  was  under  the  care  of  the  Jesuits 
at  Viterbo,  and,  as  it  was  represented  to  him  that  the 
younger  sons  in  so  large  a  family  had  to  look  to  the 
Church  for  their  income,  after  some  hesitation,  he 
allowed  them  to  tonsure  him,  at  the  age  of  eleven. '  In 
1824  his  mother  died,  and  he  went  to  study,  still  under 
the  Jesuits,  at  the  Collegio  Romano  at  Rome.  He  had 
conspicuous  ability  and  high  character,  and  besides 
improving  his  Latin— he  already  wrote  Latin  poems — 
he  studied  philosophy,  mathematics,  chemistry,  and 
astronomy.  He  attracted  attention,  as  clever  boys 
attract  the  attention  of  the  clergy,  and  was  directed 
toward  the  clerical  career.  He  must  enter  the  "Acad- 
emy for  Noble  Ecclesiastics,"  said  one  prelate;  and, 
with  the  aid  of  his  brothers,  he  drew  up  a  genealogical 
tree  to  prove  that  his  father,  the  easy-going  colonel  of 
Carpineto,  was  descended  from  the  mediaeval  Pecci 
of  Siena.  The  Academy  did  not  pronounce  his  proof 
valid — the  connexion  is  probable  enough — but,  on  his 
merits,  and  in  view  of  his  important  patrons,  admitted 
him  among  the  nobles  of  Anagni  (1831). 

Joachim — he  had  called  himself  Vincenzo  until  1832 — 
took  a  degree  in  theology,  and  told  his  brothers  that  he 

'  In  a  letter  to  his  brother  Charles,  July  3,  1837,  he  remarks  that  he 
has  entered  the  clergy  "in  order  to  carry  out  the  wishes  of  his  father. " 
Catholic  Hves  of  Leo  XIII.,  which  abound,  must  be  read  with  discretion. 
They  are  even  more  tendentious  than  lives  of  Pius  IX.,  and  the  best  of 
them— by  Mgr.  de  T'Serclaes  (2  vols.,  1894),  L.  K.  Goetz  (1899),  J. 
de  Narfon  (1899),  Mgr,  B.  O'Reilly  (1903),  and  P.  J.  O'Byrne  (1903)— 
are  very  unreliable.  Mr.  Justin  IvIcCarthy's  short  Pope  Leo  XIII. 
(1896)  is  a  summary  of  these,  and  shares  their  defects.  With  them 
should  be  read  Joachim  Pecci  (1900)  by  Henri  des  Houx,  for  the  period 
before  his  election,  and  Le  Conclave  de  Leon  XIII.  (1887)  by  Raphael  de 
Cesare:  both  Catholic  writers,  but  more  candid  and  discriminating. 
See  also  Boyer  d'Agen,  La  Jcunesse  de  Leon  XIII.  (1896)  and  Alon- 
signor  Joachim  Pecci  (1910)  and  works  to  be  mentioned  hereafter. 


Leo  XIII.  417 

was  going  to  illumine  their  ancient  family.  He  still 
loved  to  take  a  flintlock  musket  over  the  hills  during  his 
holidays,  but  he  indulged  in  no  dissipations  and  became 
pale  and  thin  over  the  books  which  were  to  help  his 
ambition.  His  father  died  in  1836,  and  it  is  in  his  naive 
letters  to  his  brothers  that  we  discover  the  human 
elements  ignored  by  his  eloquent  biographers.^  He 
begins  to  follow  politics,  in  the  most  ardent  Papal 
spirit.  Cardinal  Pacca,  the  intransigeant,  recommended 
the  pale,  slim  young  cleric  to  Gregory  XVI.,  and  in  1837 
he  was  appointed  domestic  prelate.  Cardinal  Sala 
also  befriended  the  young  Monsignore,  and  he  went  from 
one  small  ofBce  to  another.  Sala  pointed  out  that  for 
further  advancement  he  must  become  a  priest,  and  he 
became  a  priest  (December  31,  1837);  but  his  letters 
make  it  clear  that  he  entered  the  priesthood  in  a  mood 
of  such  exalted  piety  that  Sala  feared  he  was  about  to 
quit  the  world  and  become  a  Jesuit. 

About  a  month  after  his  ordination  (February  2, 
1838)  he  was  appointed  Apostolic  Delegate  (Civil 
Governor)  of  Benevento,  where  the  brigandage  which 
disgraced  the  Papal  States  was  particularly  rabid.  In 
three  years,  with  the  aid  of  a  skilful  chief  of  police,  he 
almost  suppressed  brigandage  and  smuggling,  and  did 
much  for  the  province.  His  progress  was  not  so  hero- 
ically triumphant  as  the  biographers  represent.  In 
his  letters  to  his  brothers  he  complains  that  his  predeces- 
sor has  robbed  the  treasury  and  they  must  help  him: 
that  his  ninety-seven  ducats  a  month  do  not  enable  him 
to  have  the  fine  horses  and  carriage  he  needs:  and, 
later  (in  1839),  that  the  clerics  at  Rome  are  plotting  to 
cheat  him  of  the  higher  promotion  which  he  deserves. 
In  1 84 1  the  Pope  transferred  him  to  Perugia,  and  he 

'  These  are  chiefly  reproduced  in  the  works  of  Boyer  d'Agen. 

27 


41 8  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

did  good  work  in  reforming  education,  founding  a  bank 
for  small  traders,  and  so  on. 

In  January,  1843,  his  real  education  began.  He  was 
appointed  Nuncio  at  Brussels  and  was  made  titular 
Archbishop  of  Damietta.  Able  as  he  was,  the  promo- 
tion to  so  important  an  office  was  premature.  Of 
French  (or  any  languages  but  Latin  and  Italian)  he 
knew  not  a  syllable  until  he  set  out,  and  with  the  mod- 
ern thought  which  was  then  current  in  Brussels  he  was 
acquainted  only  by  means  of  the  version  of  it  given  by 
Pius  IX.  in  the  Syllabus,  of  which  he  fully  approved. 
His  handsome  presence  and  amiable  ways  carried  him 
far.  There  is  an  almost  boyish  expression  on  his  face 
at  this  period:  on  the  long,  thin,  smiling  face  and  bright 
eyes  and  soft  sensuous  mouth.  King  Leopold,  a 
Protestant,  liked  him,  and  allowed  the  young  arch- 
bishop to  attract  him  to  religious  functions  and  persuade 
him  of  the  importance  of  religion  in  appeasing  social 
ambitions.  Pecci,  in  turn,  could  not  contemplate  the 
gas-lit  streets,  the  railways,  the  postal  system,  etc.,  of 
Belgium,  without  realizing  that  the  Papal  States  would 
have  to  admit  something  of  this  modern  thought.  But 
he  was  for  a  safe  modernism,  consistent  with  the  Quanta 
Cura  and  the  Syllabus.  He  was  suave  to  all:  even  to 
the  rebellious  Gioberti,  who  was  then  giving  Italian 
lessons  in  Brussels.  To  this  period  of  his  career  belongs 
the  good  story  of  a  naughty  Liberal  marquis,  who  ven- 
tured to  offer  him  a  pinch  of  snuff  from  a  box  which  was 
adorned  with  a  nude  Venus,  and  the  Archbishop  is  said 
to  have  taken  it  and  asked:  "Madame  la  marquise?" 
Secretly,  however,  he  urged  the  Catholics  to  organize 
a  struggle  against  the  Liberals.  The  Liberals  wanted 
a  compromise  on  the  school-question,  and,  when  the 
Nuncio  assisted  in  defeating  it,  the  Premier  Deschamps 


Leo  XIII.  419 

wrote  contemptuously  to  Rome  that  they  would  like 
a  Nuncio  who  was  "  a  statesman. "  As,  about  the  same 
time,  the  bishopric  of  Perugia  fell  vacant  and  the  Peru- 
gians  asked  for  their  former  Delegate,  Gregory  recalled 
Pecci.  His  disappointment — which  he  plainly  ex- 
presses in  his  letters — was  softened  only  by  the  Pope's 
assurance  that  the  transfer  would  be  regarded  as 
"equal  to  promotion  to  a  nunciature  of  the  first  class"; 
in  other  words,  he  remained  on  the  path  to  the  cardi- 
nalate,  as  he  desired. ' 

From  Brussels  he  brought  a  warm  testimonial  written 
by  King  Leopold,  and  he  spent  a  month  in  London 
(where  he  had  an  interview  with  the  Queen)  and  some 
weeks  in  Paris.  He  reached  Rome  in  May  (1846),  to 
find  Gregory  dying,  and  he  witnessed  the  election  of 
Pius  IX.,  and,  at  Perugia,  applauded  the  early  "hber- 
alism"  of  the  Pope.  Perugia  had  a  large  share  of  the 
advanced  thinkers  who  now  overran  Italy,  and  the 
Bishop  would  assuredly  become  more  closely  acquainted 
with  their  ideas.  From  his  later  encyclicals,  however, 
one  must  suppose  that  he  never  made  a  profound  study 
of  their  claims,  either  on  the  intellectual  or  the  social 
side.  Of  philosophy  he  had  only  the  mediaeval  version 
given  him  in  the  Collegio  Romano  and  the  Sapienza, 
and  of  economics  or  sociology  he  knew  nothing.  Such 
science  as  he  knew — the  elements  of  chemistry  and 
astronomy — was  easily  reconcilable  with  religion,  and 
this  gave  him  an  apparently  liberal  attitude  toward 
science.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had  genuine  sympathies 
and  he  felt  that  the  new  aspirations  of  the  working  class 

'  See  the  documents  in  Henri  des  Houx,  pp.  166-7,  and  Mgr.  de 
T'SercIaes,  vol.  i.,  pp.  127-132.  Most  biographers  grossly  misrepresent 
his  "promotion."  Rome  plainly  decided  that  he  was  not  suitable  for 
a  nunciature. 


420  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

were  not  to  be  met  with  a  sheer  rebuff.  ^  The  ideas  of 
Gioberti  and  Ventura  appealed  to  him.  Even  when 
Gioberti  had  fallen  out  of  favour  at  the  Quirinal, 
Archbishop  Pecci,  when  he  passed  through  Perugia  in 
1848,  gave  him  hospitality  in  his  palace.  Henri  des 
Houx  affirms  that  he  heard  on  good  authority  that  for 
this  Pius  IX.  suspended  the  Archbishop  from  pontifical 
duties  for  several  weeks.  Later,  he  incurred  suspicion  by 
permitting  a  memorial  service  at  the  death  of  Cavour. 
It  is  admitted  by  the  leading  Catholic  biographers  that 
he  was  in  bad  odour  at  the  Quirinal.  The  promised 
cardinal's  hat  was  withheld  for  eight  years  ^  and  his 
great  ability  was  wasted  on  a  provincial  bishopric. 
The  slight  is  ascribed  to  the  jealousy  of  Cardinal  Anto- 
nelli,  and  his  advance  after  the  Secretary's  death 
confirms  the  suspicion. 

It  is,  however,  plain  that  Pecci  was  a  most  excellent 
Bishop,  and  that  he  was  no  more  "Liberal"  than  Pius 
IX.  in  his  first  year.  He  strictly  organized  the  work  and 
education  of  the  clergy,  restored  the  seminary  and  built 
a  College  of  St.  Thomas,  founded  many  schools, 
churches,  and  hospitals,  brought  Brothers  of  Mercy  and 
nuns  from  Belgium,  and  opened  a  branch  of  the  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul  Society.  He  left  a  fine  record  of  re- 
Hgious-social  work,  and  the  orthodox  poor  loved  him. 
Yet  we  must  set  aside  the  exaggerations  of  biographers. 
Pecci  cherished  the  purely  Papal  ideal  and  was  out  of 
touch  with  the  majority  of  his  people.  In  1859,  when 
a  group  of  rebels  set  up  a  "Provisional  Government" 
at  Perugia,  he  nervously  shut  himself  in  his  palace  for 
two  days  and,  without  a  protest,  allowed  the  ferocious 

'  His  episcopal  pronouncements  arc  given  in  Scelta  di  Atti  episcopali  del 
Cardinale  C.  Pecci  (1879). 

'  He  was  made  cardinal  on  December  19,  1853. 


Leo  XIII.  421 

Swiss  Guard  sent  by  Antonelli  to  wear  themselves  out 
in  an  orgy  of  slaughter  and  pillage.  A  few  months  later 
Sardinia  expelled  the  Papal  troops,  and,  when  a  plebis- 
cite was  taken,  97,000  voted  for  incorporation  in  the 
kingdom  of  Sardinia,  and  only  386  voted  against.  The 
Archbishop  protested  emphatically  and  consistently 
against  the  seizure  of  the  Pope's  temporal  power,  and, 
when  the  hated  laws  of  Sardinia  were  successively 
applied  to  Perugia  (on  civil  marriage,  the  suppression 
of  the  religious  orders,  military  service  for  clerics,  etc.), 
he  continued  to  protest  in  the  warmest  language.  In 
1862  he  suspended  three  priests  who  adopted  the  Italian 
cause,  and  was  cited  before  the  civil  tribunal ;  but  the 
case  was  allowed  to  lapse.  We  know  that  he  was  care- 
fully watched  from  the  Quirinal,  and  that  he  had  an 
informant  of  his  own  at  the  Curia,'  but  his  pronounce- 
ments and  letters  make  it  abundantly  clear  that  he 
never  swerved  from  the  strict  Papal  conception  of 
contemporary  thought  and  politics. 

Antonelli  died  in  December,  1876,  and  (as  is  ignored 
by  most  of  his  biographers)  Pecci  very  shortly  went  to 
live  at  Rome — long  before  he  was  appointed  Chamber- 
lain. He  had  an  able  coadjutor  in  the  bishopric,  and 
he  pleaded  his  age  and  increasing  weakness.  He  lived 
in  the  modest  Falconieri  Palace,  and  trusted  to  get  a 
suburbicarian  bishopric.  To  his  annoyance,  two  which 
fell  vacant  in  the  next  few  weeks  were  given  by  Pius 
to  others,  but  at  length,  in  August,  the  Pope  appointed 
him  Camerlengo  (Chamberlain).  In  that  capacity  he 
had,  the  following  February,  to  tap  the  dead  Pope 
on  the  forehead  with  a  hammer  and  to  arrange  the 

'  Mgr.  Cataldi,  whom  he  afterwards  made  his  master  of  ceremonies. 
H.  des  Houx  (p.  329)  observes  that,  when  Cataldi  died,  his  papers  were 
put  under  seal  by  Leo's  orders  and  his  letters  have  never  been  published. 


422   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Conclave.  He  was  not  widely  known  at  Rome,  and 
few  foresaw  his  elevation  to  the  throne.  It  is,  in  fact, 
probable  that  Pius  IX.  had  made  him  Camerlengo,  not 
in  order  to  exclude  him  from  the  Papacy,  but  because 
he  was  not  hkely  to  be  required  for  it.  Since  Alexander 
VI.  no  Chamberlain  had  been  elected  Pope.  There 
were,  however,  shrewd  observers  who  predicted  his  rise, 
and  little  surprise  was  expressed  when,  after  the  third 
scrutiny,  on  February  20th,  he  secured  forty-four  out  of 
the  sixty-one  votes.  We  may  set  aside  romantic  specu- 
lations about  the  Conclave.  A  few  cardinals  perceived 
that  the  Church  needed  in  its  ruler  just  such  a  combina- 
tion of  clear  intelligence,  broad  knowledge,  and  diplo- 
matic temper  as  Cardinal  Pecci  possessed,  and  he  was 
sufficiently  sound  on  Papal  politics  to  disarm  the  more 
conservative.  It  is  not  impossible  that  waverers 
reflected  as  they  gazed  on  the  worn  white  frame  of  the 
cardinal,  that,  whatever  pohcy  he  adopted,  Leo  XIII. 
would  not  long  rule  the  Church. 

The  Liberal  press  had  recalled  his  friendship  with 
Gioberti  and  his  permission  of  a  service  in  memory  of 
Cavour,  but  Leo  quickly  reassured  the  more  rigid 
cardinals.  The  crowd  gathered  in  the  great  square  to 
receive  the  blessing  of  the  new  Pope,  yet  hour  followed 
hour  without  his  making  an  appearance.  R.  de  Cesare 
shows  that  the  Italian  Government  was  prepared,  not 
only  to  preserve  order,  but  to  render  military  honours 
if  he  appeared  on  the  balcony.  The  intransigeant 
cardinals  opposed  it,  and  four  hours  later  he  gave  the 
blessing  inside  St.  Peter's.  Similarly  with  his  corona- 
tion. It  is  untrue  that  the  Italian  Government  refused 
to  take  measures  to  preserve  order  if  he  were,  as  was 
usual,  crowned  in  St.  Peter's.  On  the  advice  of  the 
more  conservative  cardinals  he  chose  to  be  crowned  in 


Leo  XIII.  423 

semi-privacy  in  the  Sistine  Chapel  on  March  3d.' 
Indeed  when,  on  February  226.,  he  had  been  compelled 
to  go  to  his  late  palace  for  his  papers,  he  crossed  Rome 
in  the  utmost  secrecy.  He  would,  like  Pius,  have  "no 
truck  with  the  robbers. "  To  the  Kaiser,  the  Tsar,  and 
the  Swiss  President  he  had  written  on  the  day  of  his 
election  to  say  that  he  looked  forward  to  more  friendly 
relations,  but  in  his  first  Consistory,  on  March  28th,  he 
assured  the  cardinals  that  there  would  be  no  reconcilia- 
tion with  Italy,  and  on  April  28th  he  issued  his  first 
Encyclical,  Inscrutabile,  in  which,  besides  asserting  the 
claim  of  the  temporal  power,  he  described  Europe,  in 
more  graceful  terms  than  Pius,  yet  in  the  same  spirit, 
as  filled  with  a  "pestilential  virus"  and  nearing  death 
unless  it  speedily  took  the  antidote  of  Papal  obedience. 
There  was  to  be  no  truck  with  "the  new  civilization" 
also. 

Yet  Leo  XIII.  has  passed  into  contemporary  history 
as  the  great  "reconciler  of  differences,"  in  Carlyle's 
phrase:  the  man  who,  by  a  superb  diplomacy  and  a 
fortiuiate  conjunction  of  character  and  genius,  rescued 
the  Church  from  the  dangerous  position  in  which  Pius 
IX.  had  left  it  and  raised  it  to  a  higher  level  of  prestige 
and  power.  The  historian  must  make  allowance  for 
contemporary  enthusiasm.  Probably  most  rulers  of 
ability  and  character  have  left  that  impression  among 
the  generation  which  witnessed  their  death.  Leo,  more- 
over, as  befitted  a  temperate  and  high-minded  man, 
excited  no  bitter  opposition.  All  the  current  biographies 
of  him  are  from  Catholic  pens:  few  of  them  even  pre- 
tend to  have  the  candour  and  balance  of  historical 
writers.  Leo's  story  is  still  to  be  written.  It  suffices 
here  to  remark  that  the  forces  he  most  fiercely  com- 

■  See  de  Cesare,  pp.  138-144. 


424   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

bated — Socialism  and  Rationalism — made  during  his 
Pontificate  a  progress  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
increase  of  population:  that  the  Church  of  Rome  ac- 
tually decreased,  if  we  take  account  of  the  growth  of 
population:  and  that  "modernism"  within  the  Church 
became  the  customary  attitude  of  cultivated  Catholics. 
Among  the  most  potent  facts  of  his  Pontificate  are  the 
facts  that  France,  to  retain  which  he  made  grave 
sacrifices,  was  entirely  lost  to  the  Church:  that  Italy, 
which  he  defied,  has  established  its  position  with  abso- 
lute security  and  abandoned  its  creed  to  a  remarkable 
extent:  that  Portugal,  Spain,  and  Spanish- America 
have  witnessed  a  similar  spread  of  revolt:  that  in 
England,  Germany,  and  America  there  has  been  no 
progress  other  than  increase  by  births  and  immigration : 
that  Leo's  effort  to  check  Socialism  by  a  Christian 
social  zeal  failed  and  was  almost  abandoned  by  him  in 
his  later  years:  and  that  his  attempt  to  impose  St. 
Thomas  of  Aquin  on  modern  thought  and  his  design 
of  directing  modern  Scriptural  research  have  only 
embarrassed  the  scholars  of  his  Church.  He  was  one 
of  the  great  men  of  his  great  age,  the  ablest  Pope  in 
three  hundred  years:  but  he  failed.  He  made  no 
impression  whatever  on  what  he  called  the  "diseases" 
of  modern  thought  and  life,  and  he  left  his  Church 
numerically  weaker — in  proportion  to  the  increase  of 
population — than  he  found  it. ' 

His  policy  in  Italy  is  almost  invariably  described  as 
being  conciliatory  without  sacrificing  the  Papal  claim. 

"  The  losses  of  the  Church  are  analyzed  by  the  author,  and  Catholic 
authority  is  quoted  in  most  cases,  in  The  Decay  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
(2d  ed.  1910).  In  France  alone  the  loss  was  about  25,000,000.  His 
Papal  pronouncements  are  collected  in  Leonis  XIII.  P.  M.  Acta  (17 
vols.,  1881-1898),  55.  D.  N.  Leonis  XIII.  allocutiones,  etc  .(8  vols.,  1887- 
1910),  and  Discorsi  del  Summo  P onlefice  Leant  XIII.  (1882). 


Leo  XIII.  425 

We  cannot  regard  as  entirely  amiable  a  policy  of  re- 
minding the  Italian  monarchy  and  statesmen,  every 
few  years,  that  they  are  sacrilegious  and  excommuni- 
cated thieves,  and  it  is  surely  now  clear  that  Leo  erred 
in  maintaining  the  attitude  of  Pius  and  forbidding 
Catholics  to  take  part  in  the  elections.  The  Catholic 
Encyclopcedia  imputes  to  him  the  remarkable  expecta- 
tion that  the  revolutionary  elements  in  Italy  would,  if 
not  checked  by  the  Catholic  vote,  win  power  at  the 
polls  and  the  government  would  seek  the  aid  of  the 
Vatican ;  and  the  writer  describes  this  as  a  miscalcula- 
tion which  Pius  X.  was  obliged  to  correct.^  Indeed  the 
one  wise  move  on  the  part  of  Leo  XIII.  in  regard  to 
Italy  is  either  suppressed  or  discussed  with  strained 
scepticism  by  Catholic  writers.  During  the  first  few 
years  after  his  coronation  Leo  continued  to  protest 
against  the  wickedness  of  the  world  in  general  and  of 
Italy  in  particular.  In  1881  he  had  a  singular  and 
unpleasant  proof  of  the  resentment  of  Rome.  On  July 
13th  the  remains  of  Pius  IX.  were  transferred  to  the 
Church  of  St.  Lawrence,  where  he  wished  to  be  buried, 
and,  the  government  feeling  that  a  public  ceremony 
would  lead  to  disorder,  the  translation  was  to  be  secret 
and  nocturnal.  But  the  "secret"  was  carefully  di- 
vulged before  the  hour,  and  a  vast  crowd  of  the  faith- 
ful assembled  to  do  homage  to  the  Papa-Re.  The 
rougher  anti-clericals  were  thus  stimulated  to  make  an 
unseemly  protest,  and  Leo  took  occasion  again  to  pro- 
test to  the  Catholic  Powers  that  his  position  was 
intolerable. 

On  April  24,  1 881,  the  Pope  urged  the  Catholic 
Associations  to  enter  the  field  of  municipal  politics,  and 
in  the  following  year  he,  in  the  Encyclical  Etsi  nos 

'Article  "Leo  XIII." 


426   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

(February  5th),  and  on  the  occasion  of  the  death  of 
Garibaldi  (June  2d) ,  again  made  severe  attacks  upon 
Italy.  The  friction  increased.  In  July  (1882)  Leo 
had  to  protest  that  bishops,  not  recognizing  the  govern- 
ment, received  no  incomes  or  palaces,  and  that  monks 
and  nuns  who  endeavoured  to  evade  the  law  of  sup- 
pression were  hardly  treated.  Then  a  dismissed 
employee  of  the  Vatican  brought  an  action  against  the 
Pope  in  the  Italian  court,  and  though  the  action  was 
dismissed,  the  court  claimed  jurisdiction,  and  Leo  made 
a  heated  protest  to  France  and  Austria.  In  1884  the 
Propaganda  was  compelled  to  invest  its  money  in 
Italian  funds,  and  the  Pope,  after  the  customary  protest, 
set  up  a  number  of  procurators  in  foreign  countries  to 
whom  the  faithful  might  send  their  offerings.  In  1886 
the  anti-clerical  campaign  became  more  violent;  tithes 
were  abolished,  and  many  Italian  Catholics  began  to 
desire  reconciliation.  Italy  entered  into  the  Triple 
Alliance  with  Austria  and  Germany,  and  henceforward 
appeals  to  the  "Catholic"  Powers  were  obviously  futile. 
France  itself  had  by  this  time  an  anti-clerical  govern- 
ment and  majority,  and  German  and  Austrian  Catholics 
bitterly  resented  the  Italian  attack  on  the  Triple 
Alliance. 

In  February,  1887,  Cardinal  Jacobini,  the  Secretary  of 
State,  died,  and  Cardinal  Rampolla  entered  upon  his 
famous  career.  Leo  openly  directed  the  new  Secretary 
to  insist  on  the  restoration  of  the  temporal  power,  and 
ordered  that  the  Rosary  be  recited  nightly  in  the 
churches  of  Rome.  But  in  the  course  of  that  year 
there  was  a  change  in  the  Vatican  policy,  though,  since 
it  was  unsuccessful,  it  is  usually  concealed  or  called 
into  question.  Crispi  himself  revealed,  a  few  years 
later,    that   there   were   negotiations  for  a  settlement 


Leo  XIII.  427 

between  the  Vatican  and  the  Quirinal,  and  that  France, 
irritated  by  the  Triple  Alliance,  threatened  to  put 
greater  pressure  on  its  Church  unless  the  Pope  withdrew 
from  the  negotiations.'  Mgr.  de  T'Serclaes  virtually 
admits  the  fact,  and  conjectures  that  Crispi  wanted 
Italy  to  have  a  share  in  the  approaching  celebration  of 
the  Pope's  Jubilee.  We  have  no  right  to  question 
Crispi's  assurance  that  France  intervened,  and  that  the 
Vatican  was  willing  to  hear  of  compromise.  The  Papal 
authorities,  however,  concealed  the  unsuccessful  offer 
and  returned  to  the  earlier  attitude.  The  Pope's 
sacerdotal  Jubilee  was  celebrated  in  1888  with  immense 
rejoicings,  and  the  anti-clericals  retorted  with  fresh 
legislation.  In  1889  a  statue  of  Giordano  Bruno  was 
erected  at  Rome.  It  is  said  that  Leo  XIII.  spent  the 
hours  of  the  demonstration  in  tears  at  the  foot  of  the 
altar,  and  that  he  had  some  idea  of  leaving  Rome. 
The  gates  of  the  Vatican  were  carefully  watched,  and 
there  was  great  excitement  in  Rome  when  it  was 
announced  that  he  had  actually  passed  over  a  few  yards 
of  Roman  territory — to  visit  the  studio  of  a  sculptor 
near  the  Vatican.  But  the  Pope  clung  to  his  theory  of 
being  imprisoned  in  the  Vatican,  and  the  remaining 
years  were  like  the  earlier:  anathema  on  one  side,  dis- 
dain and  defiance  on  the  other.  When  he  died,  the 
laity  of  Rome  itself  had  become  so  largely  anti-clerical 
that  Catholic  Deputies  to  the  Chamber  did  not  care  to 
be  seen  going  to  mass,  and  in  the  north  Socialism  was 
advancing  at  a  remarkable  pace. 

In  Germany,  on  the  other  hand,  Leo  won  consider- 
able success,  though  his  biographers  describe  it  inac- 
curately. The  Kulturkampf  was  at  its  height  when  Leo 
was  elected,  and  he  at  once  wrote  a  firm  and  courteous 

'  Comtemporary  Review,  1891  (vol.  Ix.,  161). 


428  Crises  in  the  Histor}^  of  the  Papacy- 
letter  to  the  Emperor,  trusting  that  peace  would  be 
restored.  In  his  cold  and  ironical  reply  (evidently 
written  by  Bismarck)  the  Emperor  observed  that  there 
would  be  peace  when  the  Pope  directed  the  clergy  to 
obey  the  laws,  and  Leo  retorted  (April  17,  1878) 
that  the  laws  were  inconsistent  with  the  Catholic  con- 
science. But  circumstances  favoured  the  Pope.  Two 
attempts  were  made  to  assassinate  the  Emperor,  and  he 
directed  Bismarck  to  see  that  rebellious  impulses  in  the 
young  were  checked  by  religious  education.  It  seems 
clear  that  the  Emperor  had  begun  to  dislike  the  struggle 
with  the  Church,  and  by  this  time  Bismarck  himself 
must  have  seen  that  persecution  had  led  only  to  the 
better  organization  and  greater  energy  of  the  Catholics, 
while  his  policy  was  threatened  from  another  side  by 
the  rapid  advance  of  Social  Democracy.  The  Papal 
Nuncio  at  Munich,  Mgr.  Aloisi-Masella,  was  invited 
to  Berlin.  He  was  instructed  from  Rome  to  decline  the 
invitation,  and  Bismarck  arranged  a  "wayside  inn" 
meeting  at  Kissingen.  As  Bismarck  insisted  on  the 
government  retaining  a  veto  on  all  ecclesiastical 
appointments,  the  negotiations  broke  down,  and  little 
progress  was  made  when  they  were  resumed  by  the 
Vienna  Nuncio  and  Prince  von  Reuss. 

In  the  following  year  Falk,  the  framer  of  the  famous 
May  Laws,  resigned,  and  the  Vatican  resumed  its 
efforts.  On  February  24,  1880,  the  Pope  informed  the 
Archbishop  of  Cologne  that  the  government  might 
have  a  restricted  veto  on  the  ordinations  of  priests  if 
it  would  grant  an  amnesty — eight  out  of  twelve  bishops 
were  still  in  exile  or  prison — and  modify  the  laws. 
Bismarck  refused,  but  there  was  some  relaxation  of  the 
laws.  In  1 88 1  several  bishops  were  appointed,  and  in 
1882  Bismarck  voted  funds  for  a  German  representa- 


Leo  XIII.  429 

tive  at  the  Vatican.  It  was,  however,  at  once  dis- 
covered that  the  bargain  put  the  Pope  in  a  di- 
lemma. Bismarck  demanded  that  Leo  should  direct 
the  Alsatian  clergy  to  submit,  but,  though  the  Pope 
promised  that  he  would  "see  to  it,"  he  dared  not 
interfere.  In  1884  diplomatic  relations  were  form- 
ally restored.  Several  bishops  returned  from  exile, 
and  episcopal  incomes  were  restored ;  but  the  amnesty 
was  not  extended  to  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne 
and  the  Archbishop  of  Gnesen  and  Posen,  and  Catholic 
students  were  not  allowed  to  go  to  Louvain,  Rome,  or 
Innspruck. 

In  1885  Bismarck  made  a  further  step  by  inviting  the 
Pope  to  mediate  between  Germany  and  Spain  in  their 
quarrel  for  the  possession  of  the  Caroline  Islands.  It 
is  said  that  Bismarck  was  entrapped  into  this  by  a 
Catholic  journalist  announcing  that  Spain  was  about  to 
make  the  invitation.  However  that  may  be,  the  invita- 
tion flattered  the  Vatican,  and  the  two  rebellious  arch- 
bishops were  "persuaded  "  by  the  Pope  to  resign.  The 
German  Catholics  were  now  beginning  to  murmur 
against  the  Pope,  and  the  negotiations  proceeded  slowly, 
but  in  1886  Bismarck  bluntly  denounced  the  May  Laws, 
and  it  was  proposed  to  modify  them.  Shortly  after- 
wards, however,  it  appeared  that  the  Pope  had  conveyed 
an  impression  that  he  would  pay  a  high  price  (besides 
the  veto  on  priests)  for  the  surrender.  The  Centre 
Party  opposed  Bismarck's  new  law  of  military  service, 
and  he  appealed  to  Rome.  Rampolla,  through  the 
Bavarian  Nuncio,  directed  the  Catholic  members  to 
desist,  but,  to  the  equal  dismay  of  the  Chancellor  and 
the  Pope,  they  refused  to  obey  and  caused  a  dissolution 
of  the  Reichstag.  Their  leader,  Baron  Frankenstein, 
repHed  to  the  Bavarian  Nuncio  that  they  took  orders 


430  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

from  Rome  only  in  ecclesiastical  matters. '  Bismarck, 
in  his  anger,  got  copies  of  the  letters  and  published  them. 
What  followed  we  can  only  gather  from  the  sequel. 
The  Centre  withdrew  its  opposition,  the  military  law 
was  passed,  and  the  May  Laws  were  modified.  German 
Liberals  beheld  the  strange  spectacle  of  the  Iron 
Chancellor,  in  the  Reichstag,  indignantly  denying  that 
the  Pope  was  a ' '  foreign  power, "  who  ought  not  to  inter- 
vene in  German  affairs. 

No  further  concessions  were  won  from  Germany — 
the  Jesuits  are  still  excluded— but  since  1887  the  Church 
in  that  country  has  enjoyed  comparative  peace  and 
prosperity.  WilHam  IL  acceded  to  the  throne  in  1888, 
and  from  the  first  he  insisted  on  friendly  relations  with 
Rome.  On  three  occasions  (1888,  1893,  and  1903)  he 
visited  Leo  at  the  Vatican.  Bismarck  retired  in  1890, 
after  a  final  defeat  by  the  Centre  Party.  The  money 
due  to  the  bishops  (whose  incomes  had  been  suspended) 
now  amounted  to  more  than  £400,000,  and  Bismarck 
invited  the  Pope  to  compromise  in  regard  to  it.  Leo 
refused;  the  government  must  settle  the  matter  with 
the  Catholics  of  Germany,  he  said.  In  the  later  debate 
in  the  Reichstag  the  Minister  of  Worship  heatedly 
denounced  the  Pope  for  duphcity,  but  the  Centre  had 
its  way  and  the  whole  sum  was  restored  to  the  bishops. 
It  is  further  claimed,  though  without  documentary 
evidence,  that  the  Emperor's  visit  to  the  Vatican  in 
1893  was  for  the  purpose  of  urging  the  Pope  to  order 
the  members  of  the  Centre  to  support  the  new  mihtary 
laws.  In  the  sequel  the  CathoHc  members  were  divided 
and  the  laws  passed.  But  documents  on  these  recent 
events  will  not  reach  the  eye  of  this  generation,  and  we 
cannot  be  sure  how  far  the  Kidtiirkampf  was  abandoned 

I  See  the  documents  relating  to  the  episode  in  T'Serclaes,  i.,  425. 


Leo  XIII.  431 

as  a  reward  for  Papal  support  of  Germany's  military 
policy.  On  the  other  hand,  the  alliance  in  hostility 
to  Socialism  has  proved  a  failure.  The  Catholic  vote 
at  the  polls  fell,  during  Leo's  Pontificate,  from  27.9  per 
cent,  of  the  total  vote  to  19.7  (in  1903):  the  Social 
Democratic  vote  increased  nearly  tenfold.  ^ 

In  France  the  policy  of  the  Pope  was  correct  and 
particularly  unsuccessful.  A  few  years  after  the  fall  of 
the  Papal  States  the  number  of  professing  Catholics  in 
France  arose  to  about  thirty  millions  in  a  nation  of 
thirty-six  millions;  and  the  sincerity  of  a  very  large 
proportion  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  nearly 
two  thirds  of  the  Papal  income  from  Peter's  Pence 
(which  rose  to  nearly  half  a  million  sterling  a  year) 
came  from  French  Catholics.  Yet  when  Leo  died,  the 
professing  Catholics  had  fallen  to  about  six  millions  in  a 
population  of  thirty-nine  millions.  We  must  beware  of 
ascribing  this  failure  to  Leo  XIII.,  though  undoubtedly 
he  never  exhibited  a  sound  knowledge  or  statesmanlike 
grasp  of  the  situation  in  France.  That  country  was 
developing  along  anti-clerical  lines,  and  no  Pope  or 
prelate  could  have  diverted  it.  Leo  was  absorbed  in  the 
superficial  struggle  of  royalists  and  republicans  until 
the  serious  development  had  proceeded  too  far.  In 
the  later  seventies  the  anti-clericals  began  to  assert 
their  rapidly  growing  power  and  influence  legislation. 
The  Jesuits  were  again  expelled,  and  education  further 
withdrawn  from  Catholic  control.  The  Pope  followed 
the  development  in  helpless  concern  until  October 
22,  1880,  when,  at  the  demand  of  the  French  faithful, 
he   passed   his   censure.     The   Republican   authorities 

'  On  the  relations  of  Rome  and  the  Centre  compare  Count  von  Hoens- 
broech's  Rom  und  das  Zentrum  (1910).  There  are  also  curious  details 
in  the  same  writer's  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit  (Engl,  trans.  191 1). 


432   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

paid  no  heed  and  in  1883  Leo  sent  a  protest  to  President 
Grevy.  In  a  cold  and  indifferent  reply  the  President 
pointed  out  that  the  Catholic  clergy  could  expect  Httle 
favour  from  a  Republican  institution  which  they  con- 
stantly attacked,  and  the  Pope's  attention  was  forcibly 
drawn  to  the  royalist  agitation  which  divided  the  Church 
and  fed  the  anti-clerical  campaign  against  it.  We 
must  conclude  that  Leo,  Hke  so  many  Cathohcs,  mis- 
calculated the  recuperating  power  of  royalism,  besides 
fearing  to  offend  a  powerful  section  of  the  clergy  and 
laity,  as  he  still  hesitated  to  direct  Cathohcs  to  submit 
to  the  Republic.  For  a  time  he  trusted  that  the  demo- 
cratic movement  headed  by  the  Comte  de  IMim  would 
bring  relief,  but  it  increased  the  confusion,  and  on 
February  16,  1892,  Leo  issued  his  famous  Encyclical, 
urging  the  French  Catholics  to  submit  to  the  Republic 
and  assail  only  its  anti-clerical  laws.  The  royalists 
sulked:  in  one  diocese  the  Peter's  Pence  offerings  fell 
from  £60,000  to  £35,000.  Even  the  Panama  Scandal 
in  1893  failed  to  yield  any  advantage,  and  the  Church 
completed  its  series  of  blunders  by  adopting  the  crusade 
against  Dreyfus.  In  his  later  years  Leo  could  but 
helplessly  look  on  while  Waldeck-Rousseau  and  Combes 
disestablished  and  debilitated  the  Church.  Even  within 
the  Church  he  was  compelled  to  witness  an  immense 
advance  of  the  "Americanism"  which  he  detested.^ 
In  Belgium  the  political  circumstances  were  more 
favourable  to  the  plans  of  the  Vatican.  In  the  simimer 
of  1879  the  Liberals  passed  a  law  for  the  secularization 
of  the  elementary  schools,  and  the  Catholics  complained 
that  the  Pope,  who  blamed  the  violence  of  their  lan- 

'  See  E.  Barbier,  Le  Progres  du  lihcralisme  Catholiquc  en  France  sous  le 
Pape  Leon  XIII.  (1907)  and  A.  Houtin,  Ilistoire  du  Modernisme  CathO' 
lique  (1913). 


Leo  XIII.  433 

guage,  failed  to  discharge  his  office  with  due  severity. 
In  point  of  fact,  Leo  was  working  so  diplomatically, 
assuring  the  King  that  the  clergy  must  respect  the  civil 
authority  and  separately  encouraging  the  clergy  to 
resist  "iniquitous"  laws,  that  the  government  at  length 
publicly  taxed  him  with  duplicity  and  withdrew  its 
representative  from  Rome.  In  1885,  however,  the 
Catholics  returned  to  power,  and,  enjoying  the  advan- 
tage of  a  division  of  the  hostile  forces  (Liberals  and 
Socialists),  established  a  lasting  influence  in  the  country. 

Austria,  on  the  other  hand,  proved  unsatisfactory  to 
the  Vatican.  From  the  day  of  its  alliance  with  Italy 
the  Roman  officials  looked  with  annoyance  on  Austria, 
and  the  consistent  tone  of  Mgr.  de  T'Serclaes'  references 
to  it  reflect  the  Vatican  attitude.  A  letter  which  the 
Pope  wrote  to  the  bishops  of  Hungary  in  1886,  urging 
them  to  resist  the  new  and  unecclesiastical  laws  in 
regard  to  marriage  and  education,  was  construed  as  a 
wish  to  cause  trouble  in  Austria,  or  between  Austria 
and  Italy,  and  the  same  murmurs  arose  when  Leo 
urged  the  Austrian  clergy  to  resist  further  Liberal  laws 
in  1890.  The  laws  were  carried,  and  the  protests  of 
the  Pope  were  disregarded.  In  Spain  the  Pope  was 
more  fortunate,  as  he  curbed  the  disposition  of  the  clergy 
to  adopt  the  ill-fated  Carlist  cause.  ^  Portugal  remained 
outwardly  faithful,  and  a  Concordat  granted  by  the 
King  in  1886  permitted  the  Pope  to  effect  a  much  needed 
reform  in  the  ecclesiastical  administration  of  India. 
Some  advantages  were  won,  also,  in  Switzerland,  where 
the  older  hostility  was  checked,  and  the  Church  pros- 
pered. 

The  relations  of  the  Vatican  with  Russia  were  singu- 

'See  M.  Tirado  y  Rojas,  Leon  XIII.  y  Espana  (1903),  for  details  in 
regard  to  Spain. 
28 


434  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

lar,  and  gave  rise  to  bitter  complaint  among  the  Cath- 
olic subjects  of  the  Tsar.  To  the  amiable  letter  in 
which  Leo  announced  his  election  the  Tsar  gave  a  cold 
and  discouraging  reply.  In  1879,  however,  the  attempt 
on  the  Tsar's  life  gave  Leo  an  opportunity  to  insinuate 
his  belief  that  only  Catholic  influence  could  curb  these 
criminal  impulses;  and  when  Alexander  IL  was  assas- 
sinated in  1883,  he  approached  his  successor  with  more 
success.  In  the  succeeding  years  of  diplomatic  inter- 
course the  repression  of  the  Catholic  Poles  was  partly 
relieved;  but  no  concession  was  made  when  the  Pope 
presented  to  the  Tsar  the  petition  of  the  Ruthenian 
Catholics  in  1884,  or  when  he  deprecated  the  exile  of  the 
Bishop  of  Wilna  in  1885.  In  1888,  however,  Russia 
approached  the  Vatican  through  Vienna,  and  the  nego- 
tiations have  given  rise  to  acute  controversy.  The 
Poles  murmured  that  the  Pope  was  disposed  to  betray 
their  national  interests  in  order  to  please  France  by 
obHging  its  virtual  ally,  Russia.  How  far  the  Pope 
was  preparing  to  enforce  on  the  Poles  the  Russian 
demands — for  a  more  extensive  use  of  the  Russian 
language  in  Poland  and  for  a  surrender  of  the  offspring 
of  mixed  marriages — and  to  what  extent  he  realized  the 
true  designs  of  Russia,  cannot  be  confidently  deter- 
mined. It  is  clear  only  that  he  meditated  concession, 
and  the  suspicion  that  he  thus  sought  a  political  ad- 
vantage in  France  is  not  implausible. 

A  similar  complaint  arose  among  that  other  shattered 
CathoHc  nation,  the  Irish.  The  Parnellite  movement 
of  the  eighties,  it  was  said,  was  used  by  him  as  a  means 
of  accommodating  and  conciliating  England;  and  there 
is  little  room  for  doubt  that  this  design  influenced  his 
policy.  It  was  one  of  the  general  lines  of  his  campaign 
in  Europe  to  persuade  rulers  that  the  power  of  his 


Leo  XIII.  435 

Church  would  be  their  greatest  guarantee  of  docility. 
In  1 88 1  he  warned  Archbishop  McCabe  that  the  dis- 
turbances of  public  order  in  Ireland  were  not  to  be 
favoured,  and  he  made  the  hint  more  explicit  in  the 
following  year.  In  1883  he  gravely  disturbed  the  Irish 
Catholics  by  issuing  a  drastic  condemnation  of  the 
Parnell  Testimonial  Fund  and  forbidding  the  clergy  to 
work  for  it;  while  Errington  was  amiably  received  at 
the  Vatican.  The  disturbance  became  graver,  and  in 
1885  Leo  summoned  the  Irish  bishops  to  Rome.  Even 
their  representations  failed  to  disturb  his  policy,  and 
on  April  13,  1888  (after  a  Roman  envoy,  Mgr. 
Persico,  had  been  sent  on  the  quaint  mission  of  studying 
the  situation  in  Ireland),  a  decree  of  the  Holy  Office  con- 
demned the  "Plan  of  Campaign."  So  loud  were  the 
murmurs  at  this  invasion  of  the  political  rights  of  the 
Irish  that  an  Encyclical  {Scepe  Nos)  had  to  be  dispatched 
on  June  24  to  secure  the  submission  of  the  bishops. 
We  may  at  least  discover  some  penetration  in  the  Pope's 
confidence  that  Ireland  would  not  permanently  resent 
the  abuse  of  his  authority. 

The  advantage  gained  in  England  was  slight.  The 
broad  stream  of  immigration  from  Ireland  since  1840, 
which  had  given  the  illusion  of  a  rapid  growth  of  Cathol- 
icism, and  the  more  slender  stream  which  is  associated 
with  the  Oxford  Movement,  had  materially  lessened, 
and  a  period  of  loss  had  begun  (in  proportion  to  the 
increase  of  population).  For  nearly  two  decades  the 
Pope  was  content  with  domestic  measures  like  the  regu- 
lation of  the  conflicts  between  monks  and  bishops 
(May  8,  1881)  and  the  establishment  of  an  hierarchy 
in  India.  On  April  20,  1895,  he  took  a  bolder  step, 
and  in  the  Encyclical  Ad  Anglos  invited  the  English 
people   to   renew   their   ancient   allegiance   to   Rome. 


436  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Undismayed  by  the  absence  of  a  response,  he,  on  Sep- 
tember 13,  1896,  issued  the  famous  EncycHcal  Apos- 
tolicce  Curce,  in  which  he  assailed  the  vaHdity  of  orders 
in  the  EngHsh  Church.  The  brisk  controversy  which 
ensued  does  not  concern  us;  but  we  may  assume 
that,  from  the  figures  at  the  disposal  of  the  Vati- 
can, the  Pope  would  sadly  realize,  when  the  century 
drew  to  a  close,  that  the  Catholic  Church  in  England 
had  not  increased,  beyond  the  natural  growth  by 
births  and  immigration,  during  his  long  and  laborious 
Pontificate. 

In  the  United  States  Leo  had  a  thorny  task.  With 
his  keen  scent  for  Socialistic  insurgence  against  con- 
stituted authority,  he  proposed,  in  1887,  to  condemn  the 
730,000  American  Catholic  workers  who  were  incor- 
porated in  the  ' '  Knights  of  Labour.  "  Cardinal  Gibbon 
defended  them,  and  a  grudging  toleration  was  issued 
from  Rome.  In  1893  the  Pope  sought  to  improve  his 
relations  with  the  Republic  by  taking  a  handsome  part 
in  the  fourth  centenary  of  the  discovery  of  America, 
but  by  that  time  a  grave  struggle  had  begun  to  rend 
the  cosmopolitan  Church  in  the  States.  Americans 
naturally  resented  the  Germanism  of  the  German 
Catholic  schools,  and  in  1892  Archbishop  Ireland 
consented  to  hand  over  to  the  School  Board  some  of 
these  elementary  schools,  on  condition  that  the  Catholic 
teachers  were  retained  and  hours  were  assigned  for 
religious  instruction.  The  Germans  and  the  Ultramon- 
tanes  raised  the  cry  that  Ireland  and  Gibbon  were 
favouring  the  "godless  schools"  of  the  Republic,  and 
denounced  the  plan  to  Rome.  Again  the  Cardinal  and 
the  Archbishop  won  a  grudging  tolerari  posse  ("may  be 
tolerated  in  the  circumstances")  but  a  fierce  agitation 
went  on  in   the  American   Church,   and  the   Pope's 


Leo  XI 11.  437 

representative,  Mgr.  Satolli,  was  vigorously  opposed  by 
the  more  American  prelates. 

In  1896  it  was  believed  that  Satolli  was  instrumental 
in  securing  the  removal  of  Mgr.  Keane  from  the  rector- 
ship of  the  Catholic  University  at  Washington,  and 
when  an  intriguing  German  professor  was  dismissed  by 
the  University  authorities  and  Rome  demanded  his 
restoration,  Cardinal  Gibbon  forced  the  Pope  to  with- 
draw the  demand.  The  ultras  then — with  the  per- 
sistent aid  of  the  Jesuits  and  their  Civiltd  Cattolica  at 
Rome — attacked  a  biography  of  Father  Hecker,  of 
which  an  American  translation  had  been  published  with 
warm  recommendations  from  Ireland  and  Gibbon. 
A  Roman  prelate  authorized  the  printing  of  a  scathing 
attack  on  the  book,  and,  although  Rampolla  protested 
that  neither  he  nor  the  Pope  was  involved  in  the  author- 
ization, the  American  prelates  took  up  a  menacing 
attitude.  At  this  juncture  Leo,  whose  repeated 
counsels  to  lay  the  strife  had  been  disregarded,  wrote 
his  famous  letter  on  Americanism  to  Cardinal  Gibbon 
(January  22 d,  1899).  Piquant  stories  are  told  of  the 
sentiments  expressed  by  the  American  prelates,  but 
these  the  historian  cannot  as  yet  control.  The  struggle 
ended  in  a  compromise.  The  book  was  not  condemned, 
but  quietly  withdrawn,  and  the  American  prelates 
generally  disavowed  the  principles  to  which  the  Pope 
gave  the  name  of  Americanism. 

These  are  but  feeble  summaries  of  the  vast  diplomatic 
activity  which  absorbed  the  long  days  of  the  venerable 
Pontiff,  and  one  must  leave  almost  unnoticed  other 
important  actions.  In  1885  he  negotiated  with  the 
Chinese  government  for  the  representative  of  the  Celes- 
tial Empire  at  Rome,  but  the  French,  rightly  suspecting 
an  intrigue  on  the  part  of  Germany  to  strengthen  its  in- 


438   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

fluence  in  the  Far  East,  forced  him  to  desist.  He  had 
the  satisfaction  of  closing  a  schism  in  the  Armenian 
Church  (1878),  and  secured  favourable  measures  in 
some  of  the  Balkan  States  and  a  few  of  the  South 
American  republics.  He  restored  the  Borgia  Rooms 
in  the  Vatican  (1897),  created  a  modern  observatory 
out  of  the  old  Gregorian  observatory  of  the  sixteenth 
century  (1888),  formed  a  Reference  Library  of  30,000 
volumes  at  the  Vatican,  and  opened  the  Vatican 
archives  to  scholars  (1883).'  Frail,  worn  to  a  pale 
shade  of  his  former  self,  the  devoted  Pope  maintained 
to  the  end  his  formidable  struggle  against  a  seceding 
world.  Rising  at  six  in  the  morning — often  having 
summoned  his  secretary  to  the  bedside  during  the 
night — he  said  his  mass  and  heard  a  mass  said  by 
his  chaplain.  Then  after  a  cup  of  chocolate  or 
goat's  milk,  he  began  the  long  day's  work  with 
RampoUa,  or  impressed  his  innumerable  visitors  with 
his  piercing  dark  eyes  and  translucent  features.  At 
two  he  dined — soup,  eggs  (rarely  meat),  and  a  little 
claret — and  then,  after  a  nap  or  a  drive  in  the  gardens, 
returned  to  work  until  his  simple  supper  at  ten.  After 
that  the  journals  of  the  world,  carefully  marked,  were 
read  to  him ;  and  the  burning  lamp  told  of  his  ceaseless 
thinking  and  praying  until  after  midnight.  Fortu- 
nately he  did  not,  like  so  many  Popes,  lack  financial 
resources.  The  Papal  income  before  1870  had  been 
about  £130,000,  and  the  Italian  government  had 
offered  to  pay  this.  When  Pius  IX.  refused  the  offer, 
his  income  was  swollen  by  voluntary  gifts  to  £400,000 

'  We  have  on  earlier  pages  seen  that  parts  of  the  archives  arc  still 
reserved,  even  from  ecclesiastics.  On  the  general  question  sec  G. 
Buschdell,  Das  Valikanisrhe  Archiv  und  die  Bedeutung  seiner  Erschlics- 
sung  durch  Papsl  Leo  XIII.  (1903). 


Leo  XIII.  439 

a  year,  and  he  left  nearly  a  million  and  a  quarter  sterling 
to  his  successor.  In  addition  to  this  large  income  Leo 
received  vast  sums  on  the  occasion  of  his  Sacerdotal 
Jubilee  in  1888  and  his  Episcopal  Jubilee  in  1893:  the 
presents  (besides  Peter's  Pence)  in  1888  were  valued  at 
£2,000,000  by  the  Vatican  authorities,  and  in  1893  the 
money  offered  amounted  to  £1,600,000. 

The  chief  means  by  which  the  Pope  created  in  his 
followers  the  illusion  of  triumphant  statesmanship  was 
the  Encyclical.  A  most  assiduous  student  of  Latin 
from  his  boyhood,  he  raised  the  ecclesiastical  tongue 
to  a  level  it  had  rarely  touched  and  impressed  the  world 
with  his  literary  scholarship.  A  Roman  prelate  once 
described  to  me  how  he  would  linger  over  the  composi- 
tion, toying  with  his  pen  and  saying  to  his  secretary: 
"What  is  that  word  that  Sallust  uses?"  His  style  was 
an  attempt  to  combine  the  graceful  lucidity  of  Sallust 
and  the  opulence  of  Cicero.  The  literary  merit  of  his 
Encyclicals  was  so  great  that  even  generally  informed 
men  at  times  overlooked  the  inadequacy  of  their  con- 
tent: an  inadequacy  which  is  seen  at  once  when  we 
reflect  that  the  great  Encyclicals  which  dealt  with  the 
socio-political  questions  of  the  hour  are  not  consulted 
by  any  non-Catholic  authority  on  such  questions.  The 
attack  upon  Socialism  which  runs  through  his  writings 
provoked  only  the  smiles  of  his  opponents  and  did  not 
check  the  large  secessions  of  French,  German,  and 
Italian  Catholics  to  Socialism.  A  second  principal 
theme  was  the  duty  of  submission  to  authority,  and  the 
Pope's  analysis  of  authority,  on  the  basis  of  St.  Thomas, 
belongs  to  the  pre-scientific  stage  of  sociology.  A 
third  general  theme  is  that  Catholicism  made  the  civil- 
ization of  Europe,  and  that  that  civilization  is  perishing 
because  of  its  apostasy.     In  this  argument  the  Pope 


440  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

not  only  gravely  misunderstood  the  age  in  which  he 
lived,  but  betrayed  an  historical  conception  of  the 
social  evolution  of  Europe  which  belongs  essentially  to 
the  more  backward  seminaries. ' 

The  chief  Encyclicals,  which  were  at  one  time 
claimed  as  masteriy  expositions  of  eternal  principles, 
have  already  passed  out  of  even  Catholic  circulation. 
Quod  Apostolici  (December  28,  1878)  is  a  vigorous 
attack  on  Socialism,  on  familiar  lines,  ^terni  Patris 
(August  4,  1879)  imposed  the  philosophy  of  St. 
Thomas,  the  opportunist  character  of  which  the  Pope 
never  perceived,  on  the  modern  Catholic  world.  ^  Ar- 
canum (February  14,  1880)  asserted  the  strict  Catholic 
ideal  of  indissoluble  marriage,  and  had  no  influence 
on  the  increasing  concession  of  divorce.  Diuturnum 
(June  29,  1 881),  written  after  the  assassination  of  the 
Tsar,  argued  that  these  outrages  naturally  followed  the 
abandonment  of  the  true  faith;  it  did  not  include  an 
examination  of  the  cruelties  of  the  Russian  authorities. 
Humanum  Genus  (April  20,  1884)  condemned  Free- 
masonry. Immortale  Dei  (November  19,  1885)  dealt, 
in  Scholastic  vein,  with  the  constitution  of  States  and 
the  foundations  of  authority,  and  is  a  fine  exposi- 
tion of  mediaeval  thought  on  the  subject.  In  Plur- 
imis  (May  8,  1888)  condemned  slavery  in  Europe. 
Libertas  (June  20,  1888)  is  another  Scholastic  disser- 
tation on  liberty,  leading  to  an  attack  on  the  modern 

'  An  English  translation  of  the  chief  Encyclicals  has  been  issued  by 
Wynne  in  America  (1902).  For  other  work  see  Poems,  Charades,  In- 
scriptions  of  Leo  XIII.  (1902,  ed.  Henry). 

*  The  injunction  was  not,  of  course,  literally  obeyed.  At  Louvain 
University,  where  Leo  believed  that  he  had  established  Thomism  in  its 
purest  form,  Mgr.  (now  Cardinal)  Mercier  gave  us  little  of  St.  Thomas, 
and  not  one  priest  in  a  thousand  ever  opens  the  pages  of  Aquinas.  At 
Rome  Leo  set  up  a  Thomist  Academy  at  a  cost  of  £12,000  to  himself. 


Leo  XIII.  441 

claims  of  freedom  of  thought,  worship,  and  expression. 
Rerum  Novarum  (May  15,  1891)  is  the  most  famous 
of  the  Pope's  utterances  on  social  questions.  The 
organization  of  the  Catholic  workers  in  Italy,  France, 
and  America,  and  the  concern  about  the  condition  of 
the  workers  (really  about  the  growth  of  Socialism) 
which  Bismarck  and  William  II.  had  hypocritically 
conveyed  to  the  Pope,  moved  him  to  formulate  his 
views  on  social  questions.  The  only  points  of  relative 
importance  are  that  a  Pope  at  last  consented  to  bless 
the  efforts  of  the  workers  to  obtain  better  conditions 
(with  strict  regard  to  private  property  and  submission 
to  authority),  and  that  he  pleaded  for  a  "sufficient 
wage";  but  the  seeming  boldness  of  this  latter  truism 
was  undone  a  few  weeks  later,  when  the  Archbishop  of 
Malines  wrote  to  ask  if  an  employer  sinned  against 
justice  in  giving  a  wage  which  would  support  the  worker 
but  not  his  family,  and  the  Pope  nervously  directed 
Cardinal  Zigliara  to  reply  (anonymously)  that  such  an 
employer  would  not  sin  against  justice,  though  "pos- 
sibly against  charity  and  natural  equity."'  Providen- 
tissimus  Deus  (November  18,  1893),  which  sought  to 
promote  biblical  studies,  caused  Catholic  scholars  to 
groan  in  despair;  it  proclaimed  the  inerrancy  of  the  Old 
Testament.^  ApostoliccB  CurcB  (September  13,  1896) 
condemned  Anglican  orders,  and  led  to  a  prolonged 
controversy  in  England.     Graves  de  communi  (January 

'  See  Mgr.  de  T'Serclaes,  ii.,  107-111. 

*  I  speak  from  personal  recollection,  being  a  professor  in  a  seminary  at 
the  time.  Leo  went  on  to  form  a  Biblical  Commission,  of  which  my 
liberal  professor,  Fr.  David  Fleming,  became  secretary.  The  first  deci- 
sion it  was  his  duty  to  sign  was  that  Moses  was  the  author  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch! For  the  later  doubts  and  despair  of  Leo  see  the  very  interest- 
ing details  in  A.  Houtin's  La  Question  Biblique  au  XIX.  siMe  (2d  ed., 
1902)  and  La  Question  Biblique  au  XX.  siede  (2d  ed.,  1906). 


442   Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

1 8,  1 901)  shows  the  later  enfeeblement  of  the  Pope's 
social  zeal.  He  still  approves  Christian  democracy, 
and  demands  justice  in  the  industrial  world,  but  he 
stresses  alms-giving  as  a  social  solution  and  urges 
particular  concentration  on  religious  effort. ' 

The  great  Pope  struggled  on  until  his  ninth  decade  of 
life  had  opened.  He  died  on  July  20,  1903,  leaving 
his  sternly  contested  inheritance  to  less  skilful  hands, 
marking,  with  his  dying  eyes,  the  onward  progress  of  all 
the  forces  he  had  hailed  as  disastrous  and  the  advance 
of  "Americanism"  (or  Modernism)  within  the  Church, 
His  failure  must  not  blind  us  to  the  greatness  of  his 
personality.  He  united  intellectual  breadth  and  pene- 
tration with  a  high  character  and  a  lofty  devotion  to  his 
work.  His  weakness  was  the  antiquated  and  restricted 
nature  of  his  knowledge  and  his  inheritance  of  an  unten- 
able position.  The  concessions  he  made  to  his  age  were 
too  tardy,  too  grudging,  and  often  too  obviously  oppor- 
tunist. With  equal  readiness  he  wrote  a  letter  of 
recommendation  of  a  work  of  canon  law  (by  Marianus 
de  Luca)  which  advocated  the  execution  of  heretics,  and 
he  blessed  the  republics  of  France  and  America.  But 
the  great  theme  of  his  life  was  that  civilization  was 
perishing  because  it  had  shaken  off  the  allegiance  of 
Rome,  and  he  lived  to  see  the  world  "rounding  onward 
to  the  light"  and  departing  ever  farther  from  its  old 
traditions. 

'  In  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica  ("Leo  XIII.")  it  is  said  that  the 
Pope  in  1902  advises  the  workers  to  turn  aside  from  social  zeal  and 
concentrate  on  the  interests  of  the  Papacy.  This  seems  to  be  inaccurate. 
His  pronouncements  of  that  year  are  of  the  same  tenor  as  the  Ency- 
clical Graves  de  communi.  See  Sanctissimi  D.  N.  Leonis  XIII.  Allocu- 
tiones,  etc.,  vol.  viii.,  pp.  65-78  and  181-2.  The  Americans  have  issued 
an  English  translation  of  the  chief  Encyclicals. 


LIST   OF   THE    POPES^ 

Peter 67 

Linus ^1~1^ 

Anacletus 79-90 

Clement 90-99 

Evaristus 99-107 

Alexander  1 107-1 16 

Sixtus  1 1 16-125 

Telesphorus 125-136 

Hyginus 136-140 

Pius  1 140-154 

Anicetus 154-165 

Soter 165-174 

Eleutherius 174-189 

Victor 189-198 

Zephyrinus 198-217 

Callistus  I 21 7-222 

Urban  1 222-230 

Pontianus 230-235 

Anterus 235-236 

Fabian 236-250 

Cornelius 251-253 

Lucius  1 253-254 

Stephen  1 254-257 

Sixtus  II 257-258 

■  I  include  Peter,  as  is  usual,  though  it  must  be  recalled  that  no 
writer  calls  him  "bishop"  of  Rome  until  the  third  century,  and  it  can- 
not be  regarded  as  proved  that  he  ever  visited  Rome.  The  date  of  his 
death,  and  the  succeeding  dates  until  the  third  century,  and  many 
later,  are  conjectural  and  disputed. 

443 


444  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Dionysius 259-268 

Felix  1 269-274 

Eutychian 275-283 

Caius 283-296 

Marcellinus 296-304 

Marcellus 308-309 

Eusebius 309 

Melchiades 31 1-3 14 

Silvester  1 314-335 

Marcus 336 

JuHus  1 337-352 

Liberius 352-366 

Damasus  1 366-384 

Siricius 384-398 

Anastasius  1 398-401 

Innocent  1 402-417 

Zozimus 417-418 

Boniface  1 418-422 

Celestine  1 422-432 

Sixtus  III 432-440 

Leo  1 440-461 

Hilarius 461-468 

Simplicius 468-483 

Felix  II 483-492 

Galasius  1 492-496 

Anastasius  II 496-498 

Symmachus 498-514 

Hormisdas 514-523 

John  1 523-526 

Felix  III 526-530 

Boniface  II 530-532 

John  II 533-535 

Agapetus  1 535-536 

Silverius 536-538 

Vigilius 538-555 

Pelagius  1 556-561 

John  III 561-574 


List  of  the  Popes  445 

Benedict  1 575-579 

Pelagius  II 579-590 

Gregory  1 590-604 

Sabinianus 604-606 

Boniface  III 607 

Boniface  IV 608-615 

Deusdedit 615-618 

Boniface  V 619-625 

Honorius  1 625-638 

Severinus 638-640 

John  IV 640-642 

Theodore  I .' 642-649 

Martin  1 649-655 

Eugene  1 654-657 

Vitalian 657-672 

Adeodatus 672-676 

Bonus 676-678 

Agatho 678-681 

Leo  II 682-683 

Benedict  II 684-685 

John  V 685-686 

Conon 686-687 

Sergius  1 687-701 

John  VI 701-705 

John  VII 705-707 

Sisinnius 708 

Constantine 708-7 1 5 

Gregory  II 715-731 

Gregory  III 731-741 

Zachary 741-752 

Stephen  II 752 

Stephen  II  (III) 752-757 

Paul  1 757-767 

Stephen  III.  (IV) 768-772 

Hadrian  1 772-795 

Leo  III 795-816 

Stephen  IV.  (V.) 816-817 


446  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Paschal  1 817-824 

Eugene  II 824-827 

Valentine 827 

Gregory  IV 827-844 

Sergius  II 844-847 

Leo  IV 847-855 

Benedict  III 855-858 

Nicholas  1 858-867 

Hadrian  II 867-872 

John  VIII 872-882 

Marinus  I.  (or  Martin  II.) 882-884 

Hadrian  III 884-885 

Stephen  V.  (VI.) 885-891 

Formosus 891-896 

Boniface  VI 896 

Stephen  VI.  (VII.) 896-897 

Romanus 897 

Theodore  II 897 

John  IX 898-900 

Benedict  IV 900-903 

Leo  V 903 

Christopher 903-904 

Sergius  III 904-91 1 

Anastasius  III 911-913 

Lando 913-914 

John  X 914-928 

Leo  VI 928 

Stephen  VIL  (VIII.) 928-931 

John  XI 931-936 

Leo  VII 936-939 

Stephen  VIII.  (IX.) 939-942 

Marinus  II.  (Martin  III) 942-946 

Agapetus  II 946-955 

John  XII 955-964 

Leo  VIII 963-965 

Benedict  V 964-965 

John  XIII 965-972 


List  of  the  Popes  447 

Benedict  VI 973-974 

Benedict  VII 974-983 

John  XIV 983-984 

Boniface  VII 984-985 

John  XV 985-986 

Gregory  V 986-996 

John  XVI 997-998 

Silvester  II 999-1003 

John  XVII 1003 

John  XVIII 1003-1009 

Sergius  IV 1009-1012 

Benedict  VIII 1012-1024 

John  XIX 1024-1032 

Benedict  IX 1032-1045 

Gregory  VI 1045-1046 

Clement  II 1046-1047 

Damasus  II 1048 

Leo  IX 1049-1054 

Victor  II 1055-1057 

Stephen  IX.  (X) 1057-1058 

Benedict  X 1058-1059 

Nicholas  II 1059-1061 

Alexander  II 1061-1073 

Gregory  VII 1073-1085 

Victor  III 1087 

Urban  II 1088-1099 

Paschal  II 1099-1 118 

Gelasius  II 1118-1119 

Callistus  II 1 1 19-1 124 

Honorius  II 1 124-1 130 

Innocent  II 1 130-1 143 

Celestine  II 1 143-1 144 

Lucius  II 1 144-1 145 

Eugene  III 1145-1153 

Anastasius  IV 1 153-1 154 

Hadrian  IV 1 154-1 159 

Alexander  III 1159-1181 


44^  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy 

Lucius  III 1 181-1 185 

Urban  III 1 185-1 187 

Gregory  VIII 1 187 

Clement  III 11 87-1 191 

Celestine  III 1191-1198 

Jnnocent  III 1198-1216 

Honorius  III 1216-1227 

Gregory  IX 1227-1241 

Celestine  IV 1241 

Innocent  IV 1243-1254 

Alexander  IV 1254-1261 

Urban  IV 1261-1264 

Clement  IV 1265-1268 

Gregory  X 1271-1276 

Innocent  V 1276 

Hadrian  V 1276 

John  XXI^ 1276-1277 

Nicholas  III 1277-1280 

Martin  IV 1281-1285 

Honorius  IV 1285-1287 

Nicholas  IV 1288-1292 

Celestine  V 1294 

Boniface  VIII 1294-1303 

Benedict  XI 1203-1304 

Clement  V 1305-1314 

John  XXII 1316-1334 

Benedict  XII 1334-1342 

Clement  VI 1342-1352 

Innocent  VI 1352-1362 

Urban  V 1362-1370 

Gregory  XI 1370-1378 

Urban  VI 1378-1389 

'  On  account  of  some  confusion  in  mediaeval  chronicles,  a  spurious 
"John  XV."  was  inserted  in  the  hst  of  Popes.  Hence  John  XXI  was 
really  John  XX.,  but  the  names  of  the  later  Popes  are  so  fixed  that  it 
seems  better,  as  is  usually  the  case,  to  skip  from  John  XIX  to  J(jhn 
XX. 


List  of  the  Popes  449 

[Clement  VII 1378-1394] 

Boniface  IX 1389-1404 

[Benedict  XIII 1394-1424] 

Innocent  VII 1404-1406 

Gregory  XII 1406-1415 

Alexander  V 1409-1410 

John  XXIII 1410-1415 

Martin  V 1417-1431 

Eugene  IV 1431-1447 

Nicholas  V 1447-1455 

Callistus  III 1455-1458 

Pius  II 1458-1464 

Paul  II 1464-1471 

Sixtus  IV 1471-1484 

Innocent  VIII 1484-1492 

Alexander  VI 1492-1503 

Pius  III 1503 

Julius  II 1503-1513 

LeoX 1513-1521 

Hadrian  VI 1 522-1 523 

Clement  VII 1523-1534 

Paul  III 1534-1549 

Julius  III 1550-1555 

Marcellus  II 1555 

Paul  IV 1555-1559 

Pius  IV 1559-1565 

Pius  V 1566-1572 

Gregory  XIII 1572-1585 

Sixtus  V 1585-1590 

Urban  VII 1590 

Gregory  XIV 1590-1591 

Innocent  IX 1 591 

Clement  VIII 1592-1605 

Leo  XI 1605 

Paul  V 1605-162 1 

Gregory  XV 1621-1623 

Urban  VIII 1623-1644 

09 


450  Crises  in  the  History  of  the  Papacy- 
Innocent  X 1644-1655 

Alexander  VII 1655-1667 

Clement  IX 1667-1669 

Clement  X 1670-1676 

Innocent  XI 1676-1689 

Alexander  VIII 1689-1691 

Innocent  XII 1691-1700 

Clement  XI 1700-1721 

Innocent  XIII 1 721-1724 

Benedict  XIII 1 724-1 730 

Clement  XII 1 730-1 740 

Benedict  XIV 1 740-1 758 

Clement  XIII 1 758-1 769 

Clement  XIV 1 769-1 774 

Pius  VI 1 775-1 799 

Pius  VII 1800-1823 

Leo  XII 1823-1829 

Pius  VIII 1829-1830 

Gregory  XVI 1831-1846 

Pius  IX 1846-1878 

Leo  XIII , 1878-1903 

Pius  X 1903-1914 

Benedict  XV 1914- 


INDEX 


Accolti,  Cardinal,  317 

Acquaviva,  Cardinal,  356,  357 

Acquaviva,  General,  344 

Acta  S.  Callisti,  7,  17 

Acta  S.  Silvestri,  87,  88 

Ad  Anglos,  435 

Adelchis,  93 

Adelperga,  94 

Adriano  da  Corneto,  263 

^neas,  Sylvius,  241,  243 

yEterni  Patris,  408,  440 

Aliarta,  Paul,  83,  84 

African  Church,  Rome  and  the,  20, 

40,  70 
Agnes,  the  Empress,  145,  147,  150 
Agnes  de  Meran,  188 
Aistulph,  80-3 
Albani,  Cardinal,  357,  392 
Alberic  of  Camerino,  131,  133,  139 
Albert  of  Brandenburg,  304 
Albigensians,     massacre     of     the, 

194-200 
Alcuin,  78,  97 
Alexander,  II.,  147,  149 
Alexander,  III.,  173 
Alexander  V.,  228 
Alexander  VI.,  242-66 
Alexander  Severus,  16 
Alexis,  Comnenus,  193 
Alfonso  of  Leon,  157 
Alfonso  II.  of    Naples,  254,  256, 

259 

Alidosi,  Cardinal,  278 
Allen,  Cardinal,  246 
Altheim,  Synod  of,  138 
Ambrose,  St.,  30,  31,  35,  38 
America,    the   Papacy   and,   389, 

411,  412,  436 
Americanism,  432,  437 
Ammianus  Alarcellinus,  24 
Anastasius,  75,  102 


Anatolius  of  Thessalonica,  41 
Anselm  of  Baggio,  145 
Anselm  of  Lucca,  147,  150,  152 
Antiphonary,  the,  62 
Antonelli,    Cardinal,   402-3,   407, 

410 
Apostolicce  Cures,  436 
Aretini,  275 
Ariald,  145 
Arianism,  19,  21,  31 
Arichis,  92,  93,  94 
Ariosto,  281,  301,  302 
Arnold  of  Brescia,  174 
Arnold  of  Citeaux,  195,  198,  199 
Arnulph,  127 

Arsenius,  Legate,  109,  112,  126 
Art  in  mediaeval  Rome,  266,  282- 

4 

Astrology  at  Rome,  274 

Attila,  50-1 

Atto  of  Vercelli,  133 

Austria  expelled  from  Italy,  399, 

405 
Auxentius,  28,  37 
Auxilius,  129 
Avignon,  the  Popes  at,  203-22 


B 


Baglione,  G.,  274 
Bajazet,  the  Sultan,  256 
Baldwin  of  Flanders,  no,  192 
Baluze,  S.,  205 
Barbarossa,  Frederic,  173 
Barry,  Dr.  W.,  129 
Basil,  St.,  32 
Basilica  Julii,  24,  25 
Basilica  Libcrii,  25 
Basilica  Sicinini,  25 
Basle,  Council  of,  240 
Beatific  Vision,  John  XXII.  and 
the,  219 


451 


452 


Index 


Beatrice  of  Tuscany,  148,  163 
Benedict  III.,  103,  107,  113 
Benedict  IX.,  140,  143 
Benedict  X.,  146 
Benedict  XI.,  203 
Benedict  XIII.,  227,  238 
Benedict  XIV.,  353-67 
Benedict  of  Soracte,  128,  130,  135 
Benedictines,  the,  and  the  classics, 

Bentivogho,  274,  278 
Benzo,  Bishop,  142,  147 
Berengar,  King,  130,  134 
Berengaria  of  Castile,  189 
Bdrenger,  144 
Bernard,  of  Clairvaux,  172 
Bernetti,  Cardinal,  395 
Bertha  of  Lorraine,  134 
Bertinian  Annals,  the,  112 
Bertrand  de  Goth,  207 
Bertrand  de  Poyet,  216 
Bibbiena,  Cardinal,  287,  290,  303 
Bible,  early  translation  of  the,  36 
Bismarck  and  Leo  XIII. ,  428-30 
Bonaparte,  Jerome,  379 
Boniface  I.,  39 
Boniface  VIII.,  203,  209 
Boniface  IX.,  223,  224 
Bonitho,   Bishop,    142,    151,    164, 

168 
Book  of  Gomorrha,  144 
Book  of  Pastoral  Rule,  61 
Borgia,  Caesar,  244,  258,  260,  263, 

267,  272 
Borgia,  Jofre,  244,  256 
Borgia,  Juan,  244,  256,  258 
Borgia,   Lucretia,   244,   250,   254, 

255,  260,  262 
Borgia,  Pedro  Luis,  244 
Borgia,  Rodrigo,  261 
Borgia  Family,  the,  242 
Borgia  Rooms,  the,  438 
Boris,  King,  116 
Bramante,  283 

Breviary,  reform  of  the,  358-9 
Brosch,  M.,  246,  269 
Brosses,  President  de,  353,  354 
Bruce,  Robert,  219 
Brunetti,  A.,  398 
Brunichildis,  Gregory  and,  71 
Brussels,  Leo  XIII  at,  418-9 
Bulgaria  and    the    Papacy,    137, 

Buoncompagni,  Cardinal,  333,  334 
Burchard,  J.,  245,  249,  262 


G 


Cacault,  374 
Cadalus,  Bishop,  147 
Cajetan,  Legate,  307 
Calandria,  the,  303 
CaHxtus  III.,  242 
Callistus,  Pope,  6-18 
Cambrai,  League  of,  276,  277 
Canon  of  Scripture,  early,  36,  55 
Canossa,  Henry  IV.  at,  163,165- 

7 
Capocci,  Giovanni,  176,  177 
Caprara,  Cardinal,  376 
Caraffa,  Cardinal,  259 
Carbonari,  the,  388,  395 
Cardinal,  the  title,  146 
Cardinalate,  reform  of  the,  339 
Cardinals  in  the  fifteenth  century, 

248 
Carlism,  the  Vatican,  433 
Carlomann,  84 
Caroline  Books,  the,  97 
Caroline  Islands,  the,  429 
Carpophorus,  8 
Carvajal,  Cardinal,  275,  289 
Cassiodorus,  58 
Catacombs,  the,  3,  26,  36 
Cataldi,  Algr.,  421 
Cathari,  the,  182 
Catherine  of  Siena,  222 
Cavour,  405,  406 
Celestine  I.,  39 
Celestine  III.,  174 
Celibacy  of  the  clergy,  145-6,  152, 

155 
Cclidonius,  42 
Ccnci,  160 
Censorship,   early   claims   of,   55, 

115 

Cesena,  massacre  of,  222 
Chabrol,  Count  de,  384 
Chalcedon,  Council  of,  47-9,  74 
Charlemagne,  84,  85-6,  90-97,  99, 

lOI 

Charles  Martcl,  79 

Charles  the  Bald,  108,  109,  115, 

116 
Charles  the  Simple,  137 
Charles  II.,  206 
Charles   V.,  295,   297,   298,  307, 

319-28 
Charles  VI.,  362 
Charles  VIII.,  256-8 
Chigi,  the  banker,  302 


Index 


453 


China,  Jesuits  in,  364 
China,  Leo  XIII.,  and,  457 
Choiseul,  357,  360 
Christianity,  early  condition  of,  i- 

3 

Christopher,  Pope,  128 

Cib6,  Franceschetto,  248 

Cib6,  Innocenzo,  290 

Civilta  Cattolica,  the,  406 

Clement  I.,  4,  5 

Clement  III.,  169,  173 

Clement  IV.,  209 

Clement  V.,  203,  206,  217 

Clement  VI.,  209,  221 

Clement  VII.,  223,  31 1-2 

Clement  XL,  360 

Clement  XII.,  354,  355,  357 

Clement  XIII.,  368 

Clement  XIV.,  368,  369 

Colonna,  M.  A.,  294 

Commentary  on  the  First  Book  of 

Kings,  63 
Comminges,  Count  de,  190 
Conciliar    Movement,    the,    227, 

232,  240 
Concordat  with  Napoleon,  374-6, 

387 
Conradin,  202 
Consalvi,     Cardinal,     371,     372, 

375.377,387-9. 
Constance,  Council  of,  234-8,  240 
Constance  of  Sicily,  180 
Constantine,  21 
Constantinople,  Council  of,  32,  33, 

48,  49  . 
Constantinople,  Fall  of,  241 
Constantinople     taken     by     the 

Latins,  193,  194 
Constantius,  19,  23 
Constanza  of  Aragon,  181 
Contarini,  Cardinal,  322 
Conti  family,  the,  173 
Conti,  Ricardo,  177 
Cornaro,  Cardinal  302 
Cornelius,  Pope,  3 
Costa,  Cardinal,  259 
Counter-Reformation,  the,  310 
Crespy,  Peace  of,  325 
Crispi,  426 

Crusade,  the  Fourth,  191-4 
Culture,  early  decay  of,  57,  62-3, 

84 
Cyprian,  St.,  20 
Cyriacus,  75 
Cyril  of  Alexandria,  39,  44 


D 


D'Agnesi,  Maria  Gaetana,  358 
Damasus,  21-37 
D'Amboise,  Cardinal,  268,  275 
Damiani,  Peter,  144,  145,  147,  151 
Dammann,  Dr.  A.,  165 
Declaration  of  the  Gallican  Clergy, 

352 
Delarc,  O.,  142 
Desiderius  of  Vienne,  62,  71 
Deusdedit,  Cardinal,  151, 
Dialogues  of  Gregory  the  Great,  59 
Didier,  Abbot,  149,  153,  169 
Didier,  King,  83-5,  90 
Dietrich  von  Nieheim,  223,  225 
Dio  Cassius,  16 
Dionysian  Decretals,  the,  120 
Dioscorus  of  Alexandria,  44-6 
Discipline  of  the  early  Church,  13 
Divorce  in  the  early  Church,  29 
Djem,  Prince,  256,  257 
Dollinger,  Dr.,  3,  8,  9,   13,   151, 

409 
Dominic  St.,  196,  201 
Dominiis  ac  Redemptor  Noster,  369 
Donation  of  Constantine,  87,  241 
Dovizo,  Bernardo,  287,  290 
Duchesne,  Mgr.,  89,  130,  131 
Diimmler,  E.,  129 
Dupanloup,  409 


E 


Eastern  Church,  Rome  and  the, 
31-3,  44-50,  73-6,  105-6, 

Ebbo  of  Rheims,  113,  119 

Edict  of  Milan,  21 

Eginhard,  82,  99 

Elizabeth  of  Spain,  363 

Encyclicals  of  Leo  XIII.,  439,  440 

Endre,  Prince,  of  Hungary,  190 

England  and  the  Papacy,  58,  71, 
94,  148,  185-8,  219,  229,  309, 
312,  346,  363,  381,  41 1»  435-6 

Ephesus,  Council  of,  46 

Epigrams  of  Damasus,  36 

Erigena,  John  Scotus,  I15 

Ethelbert,  72 

Etsi  Nos,  425 

Eudocia,  105 

Eudoxia,  the  Empress,  52 

Eugenius  IV.,  240 

Eulogius,  75 

Eusebius,  Pope,  20 


454 


Index 


Eusebius  of  Dorylasum,  48 
Eustochium,    Jerome's   letter  to, 

34-5 
Eutyches,  45,  46 
Ex  Quo  Singulari,  365 
Execrabilis,  210 
Exsurge,  Domine,  308 


Fantuzzian  Fragment,  the,  81,  88 

Farnese,  Alessandro,  316,  321, 
325,  326 

Farnese,  Giulia,  249,  252,  253,  254 

Farnese,  Vittoria,  325 

Febronianism,  362,  370 

Fedele,  P.,  129 

Felicia,  daughter  of  Julius  II, ,  271 

Felix,  Anti-Pope,  23,  24 

Ferdinand  of  Spain,  275,  276,  291 

Ferdinand  VI.,  361 

Ferrante  of  Naples,  255 

Ferrara  and  Julius  II.,  281 

Fesch,  Cardinal,  378 

Flavian,  45-7 

Flodoard,  131,  136 

Fontana,  345 

Forged  Decretals,  the,  104,  105, 
117-22 

Forgeries  of  Middle  Ages,  87,  88 

Formosus,  125,  127,  132 

Foulques  of  Marseilles,  196,  198 

France  and  the  Papacy,  42,  71, 
79-87,  97.  157.  188,  194-200, 
219,  256-8,  276-8,  289,  304, 
347,  360-1,  400-2,  431-2 

France,  Anatole,  2 

Francis  I.,  292,  293,  295,  297,  317 

Francis,  St.,  201,  202 

Francis  Joseph  I.,  412 

Frankenstein,  Baron,  429 

Frankfort,  Synod  of,  97 

Fratricelli,  the,  214 

Frederic  the  Great,  356,  364 

Frederic  of  Saxony,  307,  308 

Frederic  of  Sicily,  180,  182,  185 

Freemasonry,  Benedict  XIV.  and, 
366 

Friedrich  of  Tirol,  234,  236,  237 

Fuscianus,  9 


Gabrielli,  Cardinal,  382 
Gaeta,  flight  to,  401 


Galilei,  Galileo,  352 
Galla  Placidia,  47 
Garibaldi,  405,  406,  407 
Gattina,  Petrucelli  della,  371,  393 
"Gelasian  Decree,"   the,  36,  37, 

55 
Gelasius  I.,  37,  55,  115 
Gerbert,  139 
Germany  and  the  Papacy,  108-9, 

158-69,  182-5,  215-8,  229,  411, 

427-30 
Gfrorer,  142 

Ghibellines,  the,  182,  216 
Gibbon,  Cardinal,  436,  437 
Gioberti,  397,  418,  420 
Giovio,  Paolo,  291,  300 
Gizzo,  Cardinal,  399 
Glaber,  Raoul,  140 
Godfrey  of  Tuscany  148 
Grassis,  P.  de,  291 
Gratian,  the  Emperor,  27,  38 
Gratian,  John,  140,  143 
Great  Schism,  the,  221-3 
Gregory  I.,  57-77 
Gregory  III.,  79 
Gregory  VII.,  141-70 
Gregory  X.,  204 
Gregory  XL,  222 
Gregory  XII.,  226,  227,  231 
Gregory  XIII.,  332,  334 
Gregory  XVI.,  392,  395,  396 
Gr(Svy,  President,  432 
Grisar,  Father,  11,  18 
Guelphs,  the,  182 
Guibert  of  Ravenna,  168 
Guido  of  Spoleto,  127 
Guiscard,  Robert,   148,  155,   168, 

169 
Guise,  Duke  of,  347,  348,  349 
Gunther,  108,  109 
Guy,  the  Cistercian,  195 


H 


Hadrian  I.,  81,  83,  84-100 
Hadrian  II.,   no,   118,   125,   126, 

127 
Hadrian  IV.,  174 
Hadrian  VI.,  311 
Hecker,  Father,  437 
Helletrude,  in 

Henry  III.  (Germany),  143,  144 
Henry  IV.  (Germany),  154,  158- 

69 


Index 


455 


Henry  V.  (Germany),  172 
Henry  VI.  (Germany),  178,  179 
Henry  IH.  (France),  346,  347,  349 
Henry    IV.    (France),    347,    348, 

349,  350 
Henry  VIII.  (England),  277,  279, 

292,  293,  294,  309 
Heribert  of  Vermandois,  137,  138 
Herimann  of  Cologne,  138 
Herlembald,    148,    159 
Hermingard,  84 

Hilary,  St.,  and  the  Papacy,  42 
Hildebrand.     See  Gregory  VII. 
Hildeprand,  92,  93 
Hildwin,  112 
Hincmar  of  Rheims,  105,  111-13, 

119,  120 
Hippolytus,  7,  8,  11,  12,  17 
Historia  Augusta,  the,   16 
Hodgkin,  Dr.,  88,  90 
Hohenstauffens,  the,  182,  202 
Honorius  I.,  79 
Hontheim,  Johann  von,  370 
Hormisdas,  55 
Hrodgaud,  93 
Hrzan,  Cardinal,  372 
Hiibner,  Baron  de,  333,  343 
Hucbert,  107 
Hugh    Candidus,    Cardinal,    149, 

159 
Hugh  of  Provence,  138,  139 
Hugues  G^raud,  211,  212 
Hungarians  in  Italy,  the,  135 
Huns,  St.  Leo  and  the,  50 
Hus,  John,  232,  235,  238 
Hutten,  Ulrich  von,  305,  308 


Ignatius  of  Antioch,  4 
Ignatius  of  Constantinople,  105-7 
Ignatius  of  Loyola,  331,  333 
Image-worship,  quarrel  about,  97 
Immaculate  Conception,  the,  403- 

4 
Index  of   Prohibited   Books,   the 

first,  55 
Indulgences,  origin  of  the  Spanish, 

192 
Indulgences,  traffic  in,  225,  231, 

284.  301,  305 
Infallibility,   struggle   over,   409- 

10 
Infessura,  S.,  245,  250 
Ingeltrude,  107 


Innocent  I.,  38,  39 

Innocent  III.,  137,  141,  171-201 

Innocent  VII.,  226 

Inquisition,    the,   at   Rome,   324, 

331 

InscrutabUe,  423 
Interest  ApostoUcce  Sedis,  183 
Investiture-struggle,  the,  152,  172 
Ireland,  Archbishop,  436 
Ireland,  Leo  XIII.  and,  434-5 
Irene,  the  Empress,  94,  96 
Irmengard,  135 
Isaac  Comnenus,  193 
Italy,  Unification  of,  405-7 


Jacobini,  Cardinal,  426 

Jacques  de  Via,  213 

James  III.,  363 

Jansenists,  the,  360-1 

Jean  of  Jandun,  215 

Jerome,  St.,  22,  23,  27,  34,  36 

Jerome  of  Prague,  232 

Jesuits,   the,  343,  352,  360,   364, 

365,  369,  387-8,  399,  402-3 
Jews,  John  XXII.  and  the,  219 
Jews,  the  Papacy  and  the,  65 
Jews,  Sixtus  V.  and  the,  343 
John  VIII.,  125,  126,  133 
John  IX.,  131 
John  X.,  126-38 
John  XL,  128,  130,  131,  138 
John  XII.,  139 
John  XXII.,  205-20 
John  XXIII. ,  221-39 
John  of  Bohemia,  218 
John  Capistrano,  241 
John  the  Faster,  73-4 
[ohn  Lackland  and  the  Papacy, 

185-8 
John  of  Ravenna,  114 
Joseph  II.,  355,  369,  370 
Josephine,  divorce  of,  378,  383 
Judith,  no 
Julius  II.,  246,  247,  250,  255,  257, 

268-84 
JuHus  III.,  331 

K 

Kailo  of  Ravenna,  132 
Keanc,  Mgr.,  437 
Kitto,  E.  J.,  223,  235 


456 


Index 


Knights  of  Labour,  the,  436 
Kulturkampf,  the,  427-30 


La  Balue,  Cardinal,  248 

Ladislaus  of  Hungary,  157 

Ladislaus  of  Naples,  223,  227 

Lambert  of  Hersfeld,  164,  166 

Lambruschini,  Cardinal,  392 

Landulph,  145 

Lanfranc,  154,  156 

Langton,  Stephen,  186-7,  188 

Languedoc,  heresj'-  in,  195 

Lateran  basihca,  the,  20,  25,  56 

Lateran  Council,  the  Fourth,  200 

Lateran  Council,  the  Fifth,  280, 
282,  303 

League,  the  Catholic,  347,  348 

Leo  L,  39-54 

Leo  IL,  79 

Leo  IIL,  loi 

Leo  IV.,  102 

Leo  v.,  127 

Leo  IX.,  144 

Leo  X.,  248,  250,  287-309 

Leo  XII.,  391 

Leo  XIII.,  415-42 

Leo  the  Isaurian,  53 

Leonardo  of  Arezzo,  223,  227 

Leonetti,  A.,  243 

Leontia,  the  Empress,  76 
L'Epinois,  H.  de,  243,  245 
Leti,  Gregorio,  333 
Liber  Pontificalis,  the,  8,  11,  24, 

80,  87-9 
Liberius,  19,  22,  23 
Liverani,  P.,  129,  132 
Lollards,  the,  232 
Lombards,  the,  in  Italy,  56,  66, 

68,  79,  92-3 
Lothair  of  Lorraine,  107,  109,  no 
Lottery,  the  Papal,  357 
Louis  of  Anjou,  228,  229,  230 
Louis  of  Bavaria,  215,  216,  217 
Louis  II.,  103,  107-9 
Louis  VIIL,  188 
Louis  XII.,  260,  261,  274,  277-8, 

291 
Louis  XVIII.,  414 
Luchaire,  Achille,  175 
Luciferians,  the,  30 
Luitprand,  Bishop,  130,  132,  136 
Luitprand,  King,  79 


Lun^ville,  Treaty  of,  374 
Luther,  Martin,  252,  299,  306-9 

M 

Macarius,  30 

Magic,  John  XXII.  and,  212 

Magna    Charta     denounced     by 

Innocent  IIL,   188 
Magna  Maralia,  59,  63 
Malabar  Rites,  the,  364 
Malatesta  of  Rimini,  230 
Mandragola,  303 
Manfred,  202 
Manichagans,  the,  41,  43 
Manichasism,  195 
Manning,  Cardinal,  409 
Marcia,  6 
Marcian,  47,  50 
Maria  Theresa,  362 
Marie  of  Brabant,  190 
Markwald  of  Anweiler,  179,  180, 

181 
Marozia,  128-32,   135-6,  138,  139 
Marriage,  the  Papacy  and,    188, 

189,  190 
Marsiglio  of  Padua,  215 
Martens,  Dr.  W.,  142,  160 
Martin  I.,  79 
Martin  V.,  240 

Martyrology,  reform  of  the,  359 
Mary  Stuart,  346 
Mathew,  Dr.,  A.  H.,  142,  153,  167, 

243 
Mathilda  of  Tuscany,    148,    150, 

155,  163,  165 
Matteo  Visconti,  216 
Maurice,    the    Emperor,    68,    69, 

73-6 
Maury,  Cardinal,  371 
Maximilian,    the    Emperor,     273, 

275,  276,  277,  294 
Maximinus,  27 
May  Laws,  the,  428,  429 
Mazzini,  396,  398,  404 
Medici,  Catherine  de',  347 
Medici,  Cosmo  de',  239 
Medici,  Giuliano  de',  290,  292 
Medici,  Giulio  de',  290 
Medici,    Lorenzo  de'  (nephew  of 

Leo  X.),  290,  297,  298 
Melchiades,  118 
Mcncrchmi,  the,  262 
Mercicr,  Cardinal,  440 
Michael,  Angelo,  283,  301,  329 


Index 


457 


Michael  de  Cesena,  215 
Michael  the  Drunkard,  105,  106 
Michiel,  Cardinal,  263 
Militz,  Karl  von,  307 
Milo,  the  Legate,  198 
Miollis,  General,  381 
Mirandola,  G.  P.  della,  304 
Modernism,  432,  437,  442 
Montfort,  Simon  de,  199,  200 
Monti  di  Pietk,  303 
Morality  in  the  early  Church,  33- 
5.66 

N 

Napoleon  I.  and  the  Papacy,  370, 

374-88 
Napoleon  III.,  400,  405 
Nepotism    at    the    Vatican,    174, 

244-60,  271,  290,  291,  315,  316, 

320,  331 
Newman,  Cardinal,  409 
Nicsea,  Council  of,  96 
Nicholas  I.,  102-23 
Nicholas  II.,  146,  147 
Nicholas  V.,  217,  241 
Nicholas  of  Cusa,  241 
Nielsen,  Dr.  F.,  373,  393 
Normans   and   the   Papacy,    145, 

147,  169 

O 

Ockham,  William  of,  215 

OflFa,  94,  96 

Olivarez,  Count,  347 

Organic  Articles,  the,  376,  377 

Orsini,  the,  174,  177 

Orsini,  Adriana,  249,  252 

Orsini,  Cardinal  B.,  263 

Orsini,  Giulia,  249,  252,  253,  254 

Orsini,  Laura,  253,  271 

Orsini,  Paolo,  334 

Orsini,  Virginio,  255 

Otto  I.,  139 

Otto  of  Brunswick,  182,  183,  184 

Oxford  Movement,  the,  435 


Pacca,  Cardinal,  381-2,  387 
Pagi,  129 

Pallavicino,  Cardinal,  275 
Pandolpho,  the  Legate,  187,  if^^ 
Papal    supremacy,    evolution    of. 


5.  30-1,  37.  39.  44,  48,  53,  67, 

74-6,  103 
Parnellism  434-5 
Paschasinus,  49 
Pastor  ^ternus,  410 
Pastoureaux,  the,  219 
Patarenes,  the,  145,  148,  159 
Patrimonies,  the  Papal,  64,  79 
Paul  at  Rome,  4 
Paul  I.,  83 
Paul  II.,  246 

Paul  III.,  252,  313-29,  363 
Paul  IV.,  331 

Pedro  of  Aragon,  190,  199 
Pelagius,  Pope,  58 
PepoH,  Count,  338 
Peretti,  Alexander,  336 
Peretti,  Camilla,  334,  341 
Peretti,  Francesco,  334 
Persecution,  the  Papacy  and,  43, 

70,  196 
Persico,  Mgr.,  435 
Perugino,  283 
Peter  at  Rome,  4 
Peter,  brother  of  John  X.,  135 
Peter  of  Carbara,  217 
Petrarch,  211,  216 
Petrucci,  Cardinal,  295 
Philip  II.,  186,  187,  188,  198 
Philip  III.,  203,  207 
Philip  VI.,  217,  220 
Philip  of  Anjou,  202 
Philip  Neri,  St.,  333 
Phihp  of  Suabia,  179,  182-4 
Phocas,  the  Emperor,  76 
Photius,  105,  106 
Pierleone,  Cardinal,  183 
Pierleone,  Giovanni,  176,  177 
Pierre  de  Castelnau,  195,  197 
PignateUi,  Cardinal,  387 
Pinturicchio,  266,  283 
Pippin,  Donation  of,  80-3 
Pirie-Gordon,  C.  H.  C,  175 
Pisa,  Council  of,  228,  229 
Pisa,  second  Council  of,  278,  279 
Pius  II.,  243 
Pius  III.,  268 
Pius  IV.,  331 
Pius  v.,  332,  334 
Pius  VI.,  369,  372 
Pius  VII.,  371-90 
Pius  VIII.,  392 
Pius  IX.,  393-413,  425 
Plebiscites  in  Italy,  405,  406,  408 
Pliny,  2 


458 


Index 


Poles,  the  Vatican,  the,  434 

Poli,  Oddo,  177 

Pontianus,  18 

Pragmatic  Sanction,  the,  286,  294, 

304 
Primacy,  idea  of  the,  6,  30,  37,  39, 

40,  48 
PrisciUianists,  the,  31 
Pucci,  Lorenzo,  290 
Pulcheria,  46,  47 

Q 

euanta  Cura,  407 
uiercey  Donation,  the,  81 


R 


Rampolla,  Cardinal,  426,  429 
Raphael,  301 
Ratherius,  Bishop,  133 
Ratisbon,  Diet  of,  322 
Ravenna  and  the  Papacy,  67,  68 
Raymond  of  Toulouse,  196-9 
Raynaldus,  243 
Reformation,     the,     286,      304-9 

312,  317-30 
Reformation,    foregleams   of   the, 

215,  232,  241,  286 
Reginald  of  Canterbury,  186 
Renaissance,  the,  241 
Renier,  the  Cistercian,  195 
Rerum  Novarum,  441 
Revolution,  the  French,  370,  372 
Riario,  Cardinal,  296 
Riario,  Pietro,  246 
Richard  the  Lion-Heart,  185 
Robert  of  Geneva,  222,  223 
Robert  of  Naples,  216,  217 
Romwald,  94-5 
Roquain,  F.,  142,  151 
Roscoe,  W.,  291 
Rosmini,  A.,  400,  402 
Rossi,  G.  B.  de,  8,  9,  13 
Rossi,  Pellcgrino,  400 
Rothrad  of  Soissons,  111-12,  119 
Rotrud,  96 
Roy,  Jules,  120,  121 
Rudolph  II.,  of  Burgundy,  134 
Rudolph  of  Suabia,  159,  163,  165, 

167,  168 

S 
Sabellius,  12 
Sacramentary,  the,  62 


St.    Bartholomew,    Massacre    of, 
332 

Sta.  Maria  Maggiore,  25 

St.  Peter's,  building  of,  274,  283 

Sala,  Cardinal,  417 

Saldanha,   Cardinal,  365 

Sancho  of  Portugal,  190 

Sanfedisti,  the,  388,  396 

Sangallo,  329 

Sanseverino,  Cardinal,  289 

Sant'  Angelo,  Castle  of,  60 

Sanuto,  M.,  253,  291 

SatolU,  Mgr.,  437 

Sauli,  Cardinal,  296 

Savona,  Pius  VII.  at,  383-5 

Savonarola    and    Alexander    VI., 

264-5 
Scatfgoch,  Bishop,  364 
Schmalkaldic    League,    the,    327, 

328 
Schwemer,  R.,  185 
Sergius  III.,   125,    127,   128,   129, 

131 
Sergius  IV.,  139 
Servatus  Lupus,  118 
Severus,  Bishop,  68 
Sforza,  Cardinal  Ascanio,  248,  250 
Sforza,  Giovanni,  254,  259 
Sforza,  Lodovico,  255,  258 
Sigismund   of   Hungary,    229-30, 

232-8 
Silvester  I.,  20 
Silvester  II.,  139,  143,  157 
Simeon  of  Bulgaria,  137 
Simony  at  Rome,  210,  224-5,  250, 

268,  301 
Sirianus,  Pope,  37 
Sixtus  III.,  39 
Sixtus  IV.,  244,  246 
Sixtus  v.,  332-50 
Slaves,  the  Papacy  and  the,  65 
Socialism  and  the  Vatican,  424, 

427,  428,  431,  441 
SoUicitudo  Omnium,  388 
Solomon  of  Brittany,  119 
Solomon  of  Hungary,  157 
Spain  and  the  Papacy,   70,   154, 

157,  189-90,  260,  347-9.  361 
Spina,  Archbishop,  374 
Spirituals,  the,  214 
Stephen  I.,  80 
Stephen  II.,  80-2 
Stephen  III.,  83 
Stephen  IV.,  83 
Stephen  V.,  loi 


Index 


459 


Stephen  VI.,  125,  126,  127 
Stephen  X.,  145,  146 
Stephens,  W.  R.  W.,  142 
Strozzi,  the  banker,  302 
Stuarts,  the  Vatican  and  the,  363 
Sulpicius  Severus,  31 
Syagrius,  Bishop,  71 
Syllabus,  the,  407 


Talleyrand,  376,  380 
Talleyrand-P^rigord,       Countess, 

204 
Talmud,  condemnation  of  the,  219 
Tancred  of  Sicily,  181 
Tarasius,  96 
Tassilo,  93 
Tedald,  160 

Templars,  suppression  of  the,  203 
Temporal  power,  beginning  of  the, 

78-83,  86-90,  95 
Tencm,  Cardmal,  354,  355 
Tertullian,  5,  13 
Tetzel,  306 

Teutonic  Knights,  the,  219 
Theodora  of  Rome,  128,  129-32 
Theodora,  the  Empress,  56 
Theodoric,  55 
Theodosius,  32,  33 
Theophylactus,  128,  132 
Theutberga,  107,  no 
Thomas  Aquinas,  philosophy  of, 

440 
Three  Chapters,  the,  67 
Transtiberina,  the,  i,  16 
Trent,  Council  of,  323-8, 330, 331- 

2 
Trosl6,  Council  of,  133 
Turribius  of  Astorga,  43 

U 

Unigenitus,  360 

Urban  I.,  11,  18 

Urban  II.,  172 

Urban  VI.,  222 

Urban  VIII.,  352 

Urbino,  Duchy  of,  294,  295,  298 

Ursicinus,  Anti-Pope,  25-7 

V 
Valens,  31 

Valcnti,  Cardinal,  357 
Valentinian  I.,  27,  29,  37 


Valentinian  II.,  38 
Valla,  Lorenzo,  241 
Vandals,  Leo  and  the,  51-2 
V^annozza  dei  Catanei,  245 
Vatican,  the,  178 
Vatican  Council,  the,  408-10 
Vatican,  early  state  of  the,  i,  2 
Vatican  Library,  the,  438 
Venantius  and  Gregory  the  Great, 

72 
Venice   and   the   Papacy,   272-3, 

275-6 
Ventura,  P.,  397 
Victor  I.,  5,  9 
Victor  III.,  140 
Victor  Emmanuel  I.,  406 
Vienna  Congress,  the,  388 
Villani,  208 
Viventius,  25,  27 
Voltaire,  356 
Vulgarius,  129,  130 

W 

Waldeck-Rousseau,  432 
WaMrada,  107,  109,  no 
Walpole,  Horace,  356 
Walter  de  Brienne,  181 
Wenilo  of  Sens,  118 
William  II.  and  the  Papacy,  430 
William  of  Burgundy,  156 
William  the  Conqueror,  148,  156 
Wiseman,  Cardinal,  379 
Worms,  Diet  of,  308 
Wulfad,  113 
Wyclif,  232 


Ximenes,  Cardinal,  301 


York,  Cardinal,  363 

Young  Italians,  the,  395,  396 


Zachary  I.,  79,  80 
Zara,  the  taking  of,  192,  193 
Zclanti,  the,  388 
Zephyrin,  Pope,  6,  10 
Zigliara,  Cardinal,  441 
Zosimus,  39 


TKe  CensorsKip  of  tHe 

CKurcK  of  IVome 

and  its  Inflxience  upon  tKe 
Production  and  tKe  Dis- 
tribution of  Literature 

Ji  Study  of  the  History  of  the  Prohibitory  and 

Expurgatory  Indexes,  together  with  some 

Consideration  of  the  effects  of  Prot* 

estant  Censorship  and  of  Cen* 

sorship  by  the  State 

By  GEO.  HAVEN  PUTNAM,  LITT.D. 

Muthor  of  "Authors  and  Their  Public  In  Mnclent 

Times,"    "  Books  and   Their  Makers  in 

the  Middle  ^ges,"  "The  Ques' 

tinn  of  Copyright,"  etc. 

Two  Volumes,    8vo,  clotK     -     -     Net,  $5.00 

THIS  treatise  presents  a  schedule  of  the  Indexes  issued  by 
the  Church,  together  with  a  list  of  the  more  important  of 
the  decrees,  edicts,  prohibitions,    and  briefs  having  to 
do  with  the  prohibition  of  specific  books,  from  the  time  of 
Gelasius  I,  567  A.D.,  to  the  issue  in  1900  of  the  latest  Index  of 
the  Church  under  Leo  XIII. 

"The  work  impresses  me  as  admirable.  I  wish  to  congratulate  you 
upon  the  singular  wisdom,  breadth,  and  thoroughness  with  which  you 
have  accomplished  a  delicate  and  difficult  task."  —  From  Bishop  Potter 
0/  New  York. 

"  I  have  read  this  treatise  with  the  deepest  pleasure.  .  .  _  .  It  is  a 
work  of  remarkable  erudition,  and  so  far  as  1  have  perused  its  pages,  I 
find  it  to  have  been  written  with  rare  large-mindedness  and  historic  im- 
partiality. .  .  .  The  difficult  task  has  been  accomplished  in  a  most 
masterly  manner." —  Frotn  A  rckbishop  Ireland  0/ St.  Paul. 

"  Dr.  Putnam  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  men  in  America.  He 
was  a  soldier  in  the  Civil  War.  He  has  been  a  leading  publisher  for 
more  than  a  generation.  To  him  more  than  any  other  man  is  due  the 
measure  of  Ar  irican  Copyright  that  we  now  enjoy.  The  marvel  is  that 
with  all  his  b  jsiness  and  public  work,  Dr.  Putnam  has  found  time  to 
make  himself  a  most  thorouj^h  and  accurate  scholar.  The  present  vol- 
ume treats  of  a  subject  that  is  large.,,  misunderstood,  and  that  is  of  first 
importance  in  the  history'  of  literature  and  of  the  Church.  The  author 
writes  in  an  entirely  dispassionate  spirit." — London  Chronicle. 

Send    for    descriptive    Circular 

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NEW  YORK.  LONDON 


A  Candid  History  of 
the  Jesuits 

By 
Joseph    McCabe 

Author  of  "  Twelve  Years  in  a  Monastery," 
"  Modem  Rationalism" 

8°.    $350 

It  is  curious  that  no  writer  addressing  English- 
speaking  readers,  has  ever  attempted  a  system- 
atic history  of  the  Jesuits.  Probably  no  religious 
body  ever  had  so  romantic  a  history,  or  inspired 
such  deadly  hatred.  On  the  other  hand,  histories 
of  the  famous  society  are  almost  always  too  preju- 
diced, either  for  or  against,  to  be  reliable.  Mr. 
McCabe  has  attempted  in  this  book  to  give  the 
facts  impartially,  and  to  enable  the  inquirer  to 
form  an  intelligent  idea  of  the  history  and  charac- 
ter of  the  Jesuits  from  their  foundation  to  the 
present  day.  Every  phase  of  their  remarkable 
story — including  the  activity  of  political  Jesuits 
and  their  singular  behavior  on  the  foreign  mis- 
sions— is  carefully  studied,  and  the  record  of 
the  Jesuits  in  England  is  very  fully  examined. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


J7 


Date  Due 


■'^f*?: 


BW851.IVI122 

Crises  in  the  history  of  the  papacy; 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00015  4353 


,l'i:lili)|'il: 


